Icy behind

Our final day in Venosc and Les Deux Alpes was spent walking. Our six-day ski-lift passes had expired and so we only paid enough for the cable car up to the town, so wherever we went it was going to be on foot.

We chose to follow signs from the south side of the town up to Pied Moutet, a forested mountainside.

It was a hard slog up to the top and people would normally do it via the ski lift, but with this side of the valley being more grass than snow, the ski lift wasn't running.

We took our time walking to the top, pausing dozens of times to sit or lay in the sun. The view below was stunning, looking out across more of the alps, or down over the skiing town and our village campsite base even further below.

As we neared the top, the grass began to give way to snow until we arrived at the summit to see nothing but white.

Having done the hardest part we followed signs marked 'Peitons' (walkers) along the top until we saw Bergerie Kanata, the restaurant we'd had lunch at twice before, below us. We lost the footpath in our initial decent and it was a hard fight through knee-high snow and occasional patches of ice, but eventually we rejoined the path making it nearly all the way to the restaurant.

For the final decent we chose the shortest path, but what looked like snow had an icy crust that was impossible to stand on. Tony slipped onto his backside and slid all the way down while I looked on from my still-standing position.

There seemed nothing for it and rather than slip and do the same I decided to sit down purposely and slide down on my bum too.

A few diners looked on, I'm not sure if with amusement or despair.

I made it down although I felt I'd gained a fiction burn on my buttocks.

It wasn't until I had seated myself at one of the restaurant's outside tables that I felt rather draughty in my trousers and groped around behind me to find I'd torn my trousers on my slide down the mountain.

I pulled my shirt down under my bum unsure if any diners had noticed. Fortunately my coat was quite long and protected my modesty until safely back at camp!