It’s been a while since you heard from us so we thought we’d do a little update on ‘Winterized’ and let you know what you can expect in the coming motorhome ski season.
Where, what and why?
Where is the easy bit! We’re currently based in the Mid-Pyrenees, about 2 hours south of Toulouse and patiently waiting for the snow to make it further down the mountains.
What are we doing here?
Ever the opportunists, we saw a call out on Facebook for some winter house sitters – had all our Christmases come at once?
Without a motorhome (last year’s was loaned) and with the beginnings of what felt suspiciously like ‘itchy feet’, we jumped on a flight to France to go and check out the gaff and see just how much roaming it’s possible to do from here. With 15 or so resorts and ski areas within a couple of hours, we knew that this was what our 18/19 winter season was going to look like.
Back at home we hatched a plan – we wanted to continue with all things ‘Winterized’ so we set out a plan to visit, review and vlog as many of the aires around the French Pyrenees as possible.
Why?
For those of you who have been following our motorhome ski adventures from the beginning, you’ll know that last year was eventful! The original objective was to get a bit of useful information collated for anyone who was in our position – looking to take a motorhome ski trip (you can check out the season in order if you have flu or something equally grim and are bed ridden for days!). It escalated a little over the five and a half months we were on the road and even further in the following eight months and we’ve now got an epic Facebook community of nearly 500 people made up of all sorts – from seasoned mountain goats with colossal amounts of experience to share to families, couples, ski bums and every other demographic of skier you could imagine. Most interestingly, there are a growing number of members who have ambitions to take a campervan or motorhome skiing trip. Many are in the early stages of looking for ski ready vehicles and are working out the logistics, costs and viability of motorhome skiing for them and this is what’s inspired us to step things up a notch to make sure that Winterized continues to develop as a resource that people can use and benefit from for years to come.
It also gives us a chance to relive our Winterized season with the benefit of rose tinted Oakley’s and with running, flushing, hot water – 24/7! (something entirely novel in our lives!)
So, there you have it.
There will be more blogs, aire and campsite reviews, and some kit testing – all delivered through the eyes of practical, sometimes ranty, semi-seasoned mountain ‘kids’.
If you’re not already signed up to our blog, you can fill in the box below and you’ll get updates direct to your inbox and if Motorhome Skiing and Boarding sounds like something you’d like to know more about, come and join our Facebook Group – all experience levels welcome.
Side note: Tunstall Tales
Some new followers and readers might not know but we have a YouTube Channel where you can see some of our escapades from last season. You can check it out here.
Some people just like James’s videos. So as well as all the aire videos, this season he’s also set up his own YouTube Channel Tunstall Tales that will be covering our time here in the Ariège region of southern France. It’s sort of a homesteading, axe wielding diary of our activities ‘on the farm’ so if that interests you or you like goats – you can subscribe here.
We’ll leave you with this intro…
Other stuff you’ll find on Winterized:
Opening this weekend…
http://www.winterised.com/item/alpe-dhuez-aire/
Our most treasured motorhome ski item…
http://www.winterised.com/2018/10/15/review-spear-jackson-grain-shovel/
And one for the newbies – Winter Tyres the basics…
http://www.winterised.com/2017/10/12/got-tyres-testicles-going-give-trouble/
