Learning Good Grooming at Serre Chevalier

At first I had high hopes for Groom School. I had told my boyfriend to ‘keep the date’ and had visions of him being taught how to dance, sing, and propose, with a quick workshop in ‘building me things’ (including a chalet and a large fitted walk-in wardrobe). But on arriving at said Groom School (GS), with said boyfriend (BF), I was faced with a huge piste-grooming machine, a giant snow assault course resembling a white spaghetti junction, a Frenchman called Michel and a relieved BF.

GS is yet another string to Serre Chevalier’s bow, a ski resort hell bent on being bigger, better and thinking completely outside of the ski resort box. Last season they had art exhibitions constructed on the edge of pistes, ski-through sculptures, and a resort-wide “white menu” where restaurants served special menus consisting solely of white foods. Now they are letting us loose on piste bashers.

Groom School offers the chance to get into the driver's seat of a piste basher and discover what it's like to actually groom a piste. For a nominal fee I was given my very own piste grooming machine, an instructor and a special learners track including moguls, bumps, 45 degree hills, sharp turns, and uneven routes similar (on a teeny tiny scale) to real conditions.

Budding drivers are accompanied around the specially designed circuit providing a 20-minute introduction into how piste bashers work. And it’s tough. Even getting into the driver’s cabin of the 10-tonne 400-horsepower machine was a challenge. Once in I found myself perched on an overly springy seat, with minuscule controls in front of me (a tiny steering wheel so sensitive that placing my hands on it sent the entire piste-basher darting off clumsily in a random direction, and a small button that I had to press, at the same time as steering, in order to control the tiller, which is the part of the machine that creates the beautiful corduroy line effect on the snow).

After a very quick instruction I was asked to move the piste-basher around the assault course. The noise, the power, the over-sensitive steering wheel… I moved off with the opposite of speed, jerking backwards and forwards, the machine roaring like a dinosaur. I crawled up to the brow of my first hill. The machine teetered on the crest before crashing down the other side. I sped off, at 2 miles per hour, heading for my first corner, the machine lurching from side to side as I bounced around on the springy drivers seat, my hands clutching the sensitive steering wheel, that responded to my every bounce, with yet more bounce-inducing movements. Eventually Michel asked me to let go of the steering wheel all together so we could, just for a second, sit stationary.

The instructors at GS have infinite amounts of patience spending all day with PLU (people like us) crawling around the track on a machine costing in excess of €200,000. By the end of my lesson I had only made it around the track twice but there was a patch of snow with relatively straight corduroy lines behind me. I was elated and also a little addicted. There is something abstractly fulfilling about creating straight lines in the snow. I cursed the next learner driver as she careered straight over my corduroy perfection. ‘How could she?’ I asked my BF as we left Groom School to return home.  

Back in my apartment high up in the mountains I used to watch the piste bashers as they groomed and manicured the pistes throughout the twilight hours, their cab lights like fire flies moving up and down the dark mountain. Never again will I be able to watch without a huge sense of admiration as the drivers work alone through the night in a tiny cabin perched on the side of a mountain making straight lines, perfect straight lines, for us to enjoy the next day.

Groom School costs €70 if you already have a lift pass or €76.50 with a return ticket for the lift.  The price drops to €56 per session if you have a six-day lift pass.  Grooming School is in session every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon. All bookings should be made 48 hours in advance.
http://www.serre-chevalier.com/Grooming-School
http://www.serre-chevalier.com