So here it is. The one psychologically related phenomenon in Val d’Isere that I subscribe to. You’ve spent the last five months here. It’s been epic, emotional, educational and hopefully eye-opening. You’ll be leaving in two weeks with a liver the size of South America, tan lines that make you look like the negative of a giant panda and probably a modicum of apprehension over your next appointment at the STD clinic. How can your life go back to normal without some feeling of remorse for what you’ve left behind, or at best the realisation that it’s another seven months before the start of next season. We at The Mountain Echo feel honour bound to provide you with a guide to help nurse you through the first few weeks of May, or tide you over till the lifts re-open on the 28th November.
What makes me qualified to write about this you ask. Well, two weeks a year here since 2003 and ten trips out here last season for weekends and holidays mean I’ve experienced that leaving Val feeling quite a lot. I’ve caught coaches at 4.30am having just rolled out of Dicks, sped away in bright sunshine and crawled down the mountain when it’s been dumping for over a day and the roads were more treacherous than the love-child of Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold. The regret that accompanied my departure was the same every time and I think I’ve put my finger on where that gnawing sensation you’ll feel in the pit of your stomach, when your coach/car/broomstick finally rolls out of town, comes from.
The Espace Killy is a skier’s wet dream. Most people only get to taste it for a week each year, at best two. We’ve had an all-access pass to it since the beginning of December, with some of the best après ski and nightlife in the Alps thrown in for free. That‘s like getting back to Jessica Alba’s place and finding Megan Fox waiting for you both with two cans of whipped cream, asking what took you so long and then them offering to let you stay for half a year. To say it’s difficult to contemplate that lifestyle coming to an end so abruptly, after it having become such a regular occurrence as to appear routine, is somewhat less than unsurprising.
Above that though, it will be the people. You’ll be spread to the four corners of the British Isles, or even the globe, like a particularly popular sperm donor’s children. People you have only known for a short time, but now count as good friends through the bond that an intense experience such as this creates, are no longer in the next room or next bed. Pulling out the staff photo, or wearing your saisonnaire t-shirt or hoodie will feel like grabbing Linus’ security blanket, but sadly the search for any kind of panacea to salve the wound that the absence of this town, and the people you’ve met here, has left you with will prove futile.
Ultimately there is no cure for post-Val depression, but in all honesty why would you want there to be. Surely the fact that you feel bad when you leave and feel the siren call of this little mountain town drawing you back all the way from England, Scandinavia or even South Africa and Australia is a good thing. Enjoy the last two weeks of the season. Drink, party and panic shag your way right up to the shutting of the lifts. You then have 209 sleeps between the last Funi and the first Funi. Make them count. As Walter Payton once said, ‘Tomorrow is promised to no-one’. If you don’t make it back here in November for next season, Val will still be waiting for you whenever you do show up. That I can promise you.
As for me, thank you all for making redundancy one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back to shouting at brokers and computer screens by November so, save for a guest appearance next year, I won’t be around to write for the Echo. I hope what I’ve written this season has amused you, whether you were laughing with or laughing at me. Stay classy Val d’Isere.
