Holidays Abroad - Le Bettex - France.
HF ran both summer and winter holidays at the Hotel La Belle Etoite in Le Bettex near St Gervais and overlooking Mont Blanc. I went on HF skiing holidays there in 1996, 1997 and 1998. The hotel was in an ideal position, especially for beginners, you could ski directly from the hotel down to the nursery slope and the ski lift. This was a 'green run' which was easier than a blue run. |
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1996 downhill skiing beginners
I think 1996 was the first year HF had skiing holidays here. HF misconfigured their booking system and it was telling everyone the holiday was fully booked. I realised this was wrong and telephoned HF to book it. They said they would report it but when I arrived at Le Bettex there were only 3 of us on the holiday. This meant that we had more individual tuition but less watching other people fall over.
They brought a ski instructor from the UK (I don't know if the hotel or HF arranged this) unfortunately the French had just brought in a law that made it almost impossible for British to legally qualify as ski instructors. So every time the ski patrol passed we had to pretend to be a group of friends not having lessons.
1997 downhill skiing intermediates
Sat 25 Jan 1997 to 1 Feb HF Leader Dick Brader Single room (shower only no WC) The cost of the holiday included both ski hire from the hotel and tuition.
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1998 downhill skiing intermediates
Sat 31 Jan 1998 to 7 Feb 1998
HF Leader Ros Shaw, hotel guide Jim, ski instructor Stefan.
There were both beginners and intermediates on this holiday so we only got tuition for 2 hours per day (beginners in the morning and intermediates in the afternoon).
Nursery slope at Le Bettex.
Note the green and yellow HF bobble hat. In those days HF had merchandise for adults, before they had teddy bears.
I seem to remember lots of falling over. We were first taught to use the snowplow technique then progressed to stem turns on following holidays I just about progressed to parallel turns but when I came back the next year it was back to the snowplow. Its very hard to progress beyond a certain point with one holiday a year.
Above is the green run, which went past the hotel, this is about as easy as skiing gets.
I remember St Gervais always seemed to be in cloud in the valley but Le Bettex was above the cloud in the sunshine.
Stefan the ski instructor.
This is a red run, it looks a bit steep.
One of the HF guests had a bad accident on the last day. She went home to Grasmere in the air ambulance with a fractured vertebra. She froze and skied into another HF guest at the edge of the piste. (I think she is the one in green next to the instructor). Another HF guest ended up in hospital on the 1997 holiday I was on. I think the casualty rate must have been very high on HF skiing holidays, I wonder if that's why they stopped offering them?
This is all wrong, the weight should be on the downhill ski.
I remember the sideways lift across to Mageve.
Other pages about HF Skiing Holidays I have been on
Other Documents on this site
Click on the following for more information
| Former HF Houses | |
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| Conwy (1914- 2011) |  |
| Newlands (1914- 1987) |  |
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| Isle of Arran (1925- ) |  |
| Scarborough (1954- 1998) |  |
| Lulworth |  |
| Beddgelert |  |
| New Inns |  |
| Penrith |  |
| Milford-on-Sea |  |
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About This SiteHere is some history of former HF houses I have visited (there are also some pages about getting to, and walking from, HF houses without using a car). Over the years I have had holidays in houses that HF have closed. I think it would be good if there were somewhere on the HF website where peoples memories could be stored and made available online. I know that HF have a paper history archive at Newfield Hall and there is an online book by Harry Wroe but I would see this as something HF could do which is more of a online community thing. If you find any errors why not let others know by putting a post on the HF Holiday Fans ( unofficial) Facebook forum. I will try to quote such posts here so they don't get lost. |