Well, it's now 3 days since we all got back to England and vowed never to set foot on a trans-Europe coach again.
I think it's fair to say everyone had a fantastic week. (I'm sure even Liam and Vicky would agree, although they could probably have done without the injuries...)
All of the Explorers did fantastically well - Jack and the 3 Matts swore blind they hadn't been skiing before, but were ready for anything the resort could throw at them by the end of the week. Eddie and Tom could already ski, but bonus points for not injuring yourselves during 6 days of skiing, lads.
As for us leaders - some of us (me) had a whole 2 hours of previous experience, which went completely out of the window as soon as we realised that, actually, snow is a bit different to the dry slope at Telford. (Phil & Stretch actually realised this at the top of a mountain, as they were about to start skiing down it. Here, this is a creek. You won't be needing that paddle...)
On Friday we decided to break away from the Ski school lessons, and ski as a group (well, not including Ed and Tom. Antisocial gits). This meant the lads who were feeling a bit worse for the constant sun exposure and their own forgetfulness when it comes to drinking plenty of water could take it a bit easier (along with Ad, Phil & Zanna who just wanted to be lazy for the day), and the rest of us could spend some time practising what we'd been taught over the days before. It also meant we could grab lunch at a restaurant on the slopes - a good thing, as we were all getting a bit bored of ham rolls!
We kept this up on the Saturday - Emma and Jo stuck with their group who went to a different part of the resort, so the rest of us ski'd across to meet them in time for lunch. We then had probably our best investiture ever - four Explorer Scouts, in the middle of the Alps, at the top of a ski run. We left Emma & Jo to enjoy the rest of the afternoon from the comfort of the restaurant and ski'd back to where we started the day - except the return journey happened in Scout uniform! We're going to have to think of something pretty special for our next investiture...

All in all, it was a fab week, and we're very grateful to 3rd Wombourne Scouts to inviting us along - it's great to go on a camp and not have to run it!

I'm thinking we could do a week in Kandersteg International Scout Centre in 2008 sometime. (Ok, 2009, if we're realistic). If we're going to we need to get moving on organising it soon. Have a look at http://www.kisc.ch/ and see what you think.

Iain.