-------LIVING WITH A------ MOTORHOME.: Skiing in Val Thorens, did the winterisation work?

The Beauty never ceases to amaze me.

Well after lots of work to get the van ready for another skiing trip, it was time to assess the work carried out.

We had initially agreed to go anywhere except Val Thorens this year, however we again managed to agree to go with others and again head for the coldest resort in Europe...

We set off on the Wednesday and via Calais & Annecy and picking up another few vans 5 motor homes arrived at VT....

We arrived up the mountain with a couple of the vans (both tag axles) needing to add snow chains. We however managed to make it all the way JUST....with the last two bends proving particularly difficult, However the brand new continental tyres obviously served their purpose.

We arrived in heavy snow and managed to secure a place on the aire which was much better positioned than last years..the tempretures at this point was -2 and about to get much colder. We hired ourselves 7 snowmobiles and set off snow mobilling, What a great laugh that was. One of them got rolled with my son on the back but, all were fine.

By the morning we were to awake to temps that had been as low as -20 but glorious sunshine. The Geist froze, the swift kong-tiki lost its waist but we were still hanging in there with both water, cold water, hot water and waist working well. The Hymer with us remained warm and had been fitted with an acti vent from truma which appeared to work really well in keeping the front of the Hymer warm.

We had the most fantastic days skiing in fantastic weather before spending a couple of hours out with some snow mobiles....another early night due to the exertion of the days events... The batteries holding up well due to the battery to battery charger working great...

Sunday meant some more skiing and some more glorious sunshine..yet still no problems with water freezing and still plenty warm enough here in the van.

Monday saw me unable to ski due to some sick bug that I appeared to of collected, yuk, still no problems with the van despite the temperatures dropping to -22 !!!!

Tuesday came, more glorious sunshine making it 4 days on the trot this time despite feeling a little poorly four of us would ski right across the 3 valleys for the day. Across we went having a great days skiing before returning to the van. On arriving back at the van, 2 of our party decided to leave, leaving just 3 left, My Bessie, Rory's Hymer and Steve's Rapido.

More glorious sunshine on Wednesday meant more skiing, this time just an afternoon and a couple of crashes, nothing high speed, me just taking some girl out in the snow park who had stopped on a jump..... And then completely destroyed in front of my wife who had come to bring me food and was waiting at the bottom of the mountain, there whilst in full view of her a snowboarder practically destroyed me hitting me clean in the calf and leaving me in a heap on the floor.....

Thursday meant more glorious sunshine, but instead of skiing and in view of my bruises from the day before we decided to head off. We left heading for annecy and spent an afternoon walking around the town. Nikki loved it very much and it is kinda quaint... We moved on and headed over the Col de Faucille stopping at a ski area with a fantastic aire called Balancier just on the French Swiss border.

A bit of skiing between France and Switzerland on the Friday stopping and finally it was time for the journey home.

We spent time traveling nice and slowly, not touching a single toll road, eventually we hit Calais for our crossing before heading for home via Nikkis mums.

All in all another fantastic ski trip. This will be the last as a complete family though as George has decided he never wants to spend another night in the van. Being as he will be 17 next time we go, I can understand his not wanting to come anymore. One more year of going with Harley though and then we can dump the February half term trips and go in the quieter periods.

The van performed spectacularly, much better than we imagined. The van performed like a German continental, so we can't complain at all.

We spent a lot more money than normal but it was worth every penny.