On adore les Contaminés

We'd said never again to a February half-term ski trip, but this year it was the only gap we could find together.
The first gondola from les Contaminés was chaos, lifties smoking and letting people join from multiple directions, no separate ski school lane. It did nothing to change our view. Then at the middle station we transferred straight away, the second gondola surprisingly empty. At the top hardly a soul... And non of them headed in the direction we did. At the next lift we were the first non staff passengers.
For the next hour Mrs IttH had pristine courdory piste to herself and I made fresh tracks through the new overnight snow in the little bowls and through the trees adjacent - able to wander further and further afield as Mrs IttHs confidence grew. 
Eventually other people started to appear - but in genuinely, surprisingly, low numbers. We took a few lesser traveled routes and didn't queue for a lift once. Add in a fabulous lunch at a firm favourite mountain auberge, a brilliant blue sky, an early inversion and those views... and it was as close to perfect a ski day as we've experienced in a fair few years.
So hard to choose today, so lots of extras.