Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

Going ice diving yesterday was really more of a study in determination. I knew last night there would be trouble. I got up this morning to see 70cm of fresh snow in the village and my rented panda almost totally buried.

It took me 30 minutes to dig the bugger out and get on the road. Only 15km of uphill winding snow covered mountain passes to go then….. In a fiat panda with no snow chains & it’s still snowing hard. Merde. About 2 km into the trip the road got so steep that the car simply could not get enough grip to move it forward. I aborted and went back down. Called evolution 2 to let them know that I’d be a bit late. Not that I was giving up - I’d told far too many people that I was going ice diving on the last day of the year, and not doing it would be a bit gay.

The girl at evolution 2 suggested I hitched up the mountain. Now I’m as big a fan of sketchy plans as the next man, but that was too sketch for me. Luckily her plan C turned out to be the go; I’d bloody ski over there! Doesn’t matter that I’d packed up my ski gear & needed a new lift pass. 20 minutes later I’m on the telecabine, but what’s this? Suddenly the clouds start to clear up and laid out below me is a piste with knee deep fresh powder being cut to ribbons by loads of skiers and boarders having the time of their lives. There was more than enough off piste around to make a fresh track run a certainty. I got on another chair lift to get to a point where I could ski down the back of the mountain in into Tignes le lac where I would be diving.

There it was - the slope you dream about. You’ve been skiing all week, your technique is nailed and all you want is a steep bit of powder to test yourself on and see if you really can ski. I’d seen some other skiers going down it from the lift and there were some tracks, but plenty of room for more. I applied my numpty avalanche experience and took the decision that it was safe to try. It would have been better to have a partner, but fuck it. I picked a line nearly on the fall line and made the descent.

It was like my skis were on little wings. Turn after turn, powder flying up and my atomic SX9’s disappearing under the powder and flying out again time after time. It was the best skiing I’ve ever done. I looked up at the top - fresh tracks… 100 yards + of them and the tracks looked good. Damn…. I really can ski!

So on a high I got down to the Tignes Lake and met the boys from the Tignes ecole de plongee sous glace. They were really sound - and lots of fun. Didn’t speak very much English, but enough to do a decent briefing about the equipment we’d be using and what the dive would be like. The equipment was excellent. A neoprene dry suit, dry gloves and full face mask meant that not one cm of skin remained exposed to the water. Just as well because the water under the ice is 2 degrees Celsius. Fully kitted up, we went for a dive under the ice.

It was amazing. This is not the kind of dive where you’re expecting to see fish, nor the kind of dive where are descending into the depths. We never dropped below a couple of metres in depth and spent the dive looking up at the ice above unlike the usual position of looking down at the bottom. From the surface the ice is flat as a pancake, and you might expect it to be the same underneath. It’s actually very different. Air gets trapped under there and creates pockets and a very irregular surface. In places you can actually find an air pocket big enough to put your head into and look around. There was a glimpse of two of the lake bottom shelving up to meet the edge, but although there was some plant life riding out the winter there were no fish to be seen.

What a day. The last day of the 2005 and one to remember. All that remained for me to do was to drive back through the gathering snow storm to Bourg St Maurice, give my trusty panda back, and go shopping for a new year’s picnic of wine, cheese, bread and champagne for the train journey. I found some delightful company to share my dinner with and at midnight amidst the raucous auld lang syne in the bar carriage I could have been found kissing my new friend Dympna - but that’s another story :)