Alps "except for skis": Caves of the snow grotto

Evgenia Kulish aka Enia writes: “Winter is coming. And this is not just a refrain from one famous fantasy saga, but also the inevitable climatic reality of our part of the world… Winter is coming = SEASON is coming… This means that in thousands of homes, skiers, boarders and adherents of more exotic skiing equipment are already getting equipment from the mezzanines, trying on equipment in the hope that the figure has not changed much over the summer and they are in a hurry to buy everything that they managed to break or tear last year ...

And somewhere far, far away in the Alps, at an altitude of more than 2 and a half thousand meters, they have probably already developed sketches and started to fill a snowdrift and dig caves in it for a new snow grotto to add a little variety to the monotonous everyday life of skiers ...

What am I talking about? Now I'll tell you…”

(Total 22 photos)

Source: Journal/enia

1. Ladies and gentlemen! To begin with, let me invite you for a walk in the icy world of cyclops, philosophers and beautiful goddesses... Into the snowy world of Ancient Greece! And do not forget about warm clothes and strong hot drinks ... It will be very cold!

2. On the snowy peak of Col de la Chal in the French Alpine ski area Les Arcs, the so-called snow grotto is arranged annually.

3. Small, inconspicuous entrance, reminiscent of a house covered with snow ...

4. 2 euro entrance fee, descent down….

5. And a long corridor, the walls of which are decorated with figures carved from the snow mass!

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7. Every year, almost all of this snow melts for the summer ... And every year this snowdrift is made anew, and a cave is dug in it again, and it is repopulated with bizarre inhabitants ... every year is a new topic!

What theme did the organizers choose this year??? I do not know this…

A couple of years ago, when we first discovered this grotto for ourselves, the leitmotif was the art of the Mayan tribes ...

8. And last year, you guessed it, the theme was Ancient Greece… its myths and legends…

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12. ... and not only! Here is Aristotle...

13. ... and Plato, And Socrates (it seems) ...

14. Well, and a lot of just free variations on a given theme!

15. Many of the sculptures are snow copies of real works of art... This is eloquently evidenced by small plates, next to photographs of real antique statues from the collections of various museums... (Let's leave out the degree of similarity with the original, after all, snow is a specific texture...)

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17. Sometimes there are also ice sculptures ... But they are in the minority ... (For ice you need to go to another peak in a nearby resort!)

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19. The corridor itself is quite low ... I almost touched the ceiling with my head, and my slightly longer husband had to bend down at all ...

20. Special rubber mats are spread along the entire corridor for the convenience of visitors ... after all, many of the guests come here in hard ski boots. And this is a very specific and not very comfortable shoe!

21. And all this white array, of course, is painted with colored highlights!

22. You can’t touch snow figures with your hands ... But sometimes, it’s just impossible to resist!!!

Such grottoes, snow and ice, are actually not uncommon in Alpine ski resorts ... And this is really a charming cherry on a ski cake from the interweaving of endless tracks and slopes ... albeit not a determining one in choosing a resort!

But this year we will go somewhere else! Where are you skiers going?