la raquette

Last week, one of my schools graciously invited me to go snowshoeing with them in the Alps. I jumped at the chance, and felt like quite the grenobloise marching through the city in my puffy winter coat, borrowed snow boots and snow pants.

I met up with the classes early in the morning, and we all loaded onto the charter bus (there aren't any school busses here because there are lots of tiny schools, and the kids can all either walk or take public transportation).  I ended up sitting by a mom-chaperone I'd met while I was babysitting the other day due to a teacher strike (more on those later), which is how I thankfully avoided becoming a vomit-covered version of myself.

In case you were unsure, when you put 50 kids under the age of 7 on a bus and then drive that bus for over an hour on winding mountain roads in a blizzard and the driver gets lost and turns around a couple times and there are only three plastic bags on board...there is going to be a lot of vomit. Because when one kid goes, there go the rest of them. It was pretty miraculous I didn't fall victim, in fact. It got so bad, and the driver was so lost, that the teachers had him pull the bus over; we let the kids get out and play in the snow on the side of the road while the teachers (I excluded myself from them for this excitement) used snow to clear all the vomit off the floor of the bus. So fun.

But the driver did finally manage to conquer the blizzard and find where to let us off (which happened to be the place where we had turned around earlier, the Chamrousse ski resort... ) and we hopped out to see where our rented snowshoes would take us.

Well, it took us here...

 and here...

and here...

so all in all, I'd say it was a preeeeetty decent trip, even with the vomit. 

And how has no one ever told me how great snowshoeing is?! It's so great, I'm telling you right now so you don't have to ask that question in the future. You can go back in all those cool little parts you wouldn't be able to ski on, and you don't have to worry about people mowing you down, and there are no chair lifts, and you feel like a magician being able to walk on the powder like that, and it is literally so easy that the 6 year olds who had just thrown up could do it. I'm officially a snowshoeing fan now. 

A perk of going on a field trip is that there's a guide there who has all sorts of fun things to teach the kids. Like the fact that snow is mostly air, so when you step on it, you let the air escape and the snow compresses, which is why you sink. That air is also the reason why snow caves can keep you warm, and why layering is the best way to dress for the cold. 

The only thing this place was missing was a real, honest to goodness ski lodge. Because really, that's the best part of any snowy mountain activity. This one was mostly just a log cabin-esque square room with some tables and a co-ed bathroom. But I digress. The main point of all of this is that snowshoeing is awesome and it made me actually even enjoy the snow (a little bit). Which is a pretty big accomplishment.