Daily Mail Weekend: Who Wears The Ski Pants In Your Chalet
Date of publication: 01 March 2008
Lashed together by a length of nylon rope, Ben, Emma and I prepare to descend from the peak of one of Europe’s highest mountains. Our guide, a softly spoken Frenchman, has placed the two men at the front and is so intent on encouraging us forward along the precipitous knife-edge ridge that he has no time to respond to the dissension in the ranks from the blonde at the back. ‘Why are they going so slowly?’ demands Emma, Ben’s other half.Ten minutes later and we’ve finally made it on to level ground. We clip on our skis and head off down the Vallée Blanche, or White valley, one of the world’s greatest expanses of off-piste skiing. After 24 hours of falling snow the powder is knee deep, and in a touch over ten miles we’ll descend almost 10,000 feet. And so it is that on his first turn Ben wipes out. I last a little bit longer, but then one ski goes left and the other goes straight on. Face down, the snow dulls my hearing but I can still hear a faint whining sound. ‘Is it all like this?’ it goes. ‘It’s a bit flat, isn’t it? Aren’t there any steeper bits?’ It’s Emma. Hasn’t she noticed that certain members of the party – her dearly beloved for one- are already struggling with the gradient?While my poor performance could, of course, be put down to the debilitating effects of altitude, Ben is a relatively inexperienced skier – a fact that his girlfriend seems oblivious to. Maybe she’s distracted by her iPod, or maybe it’s just because skiing –like no other activity- can bring out fierce competition between men and women.
Indeed, if a recent survey is to be believed, that is why couples are more likely to row on the piste than during any other holiday. It has to be said that my wife and I rarely ski together. Basically, that’s because I am much, much better than her. But she says it’s because I’m unbearably smug and that I have an unfair advantage because my family were ‘posher’ than hers and regularly headed off to Val d’Isère while she went to the Norfolk Broads. She doesn’t like going ‘fast’, she tells me and, so slowly does she descend the slopes in the strange, crab-like position she has invented, that it’s possible to complete two runs to her. Perhaps I am one of the lucky ones though. Another friend of mine was left feeling terribly deflated after his recent ski break. His wife is vicious about his technique on the slopes. ‘She says I’m less James Bond and more Frank Spencer,’ he confided. ‘It is rather galling to see her gliding off with a smarmy ski instructor.’ But competitive women beware. ‘This sense of rivalry can be quite damaging,’ warns relationship expert Tracey Cox. ‘ It is crucial to try and maintain a sense of humour, perhaps to make a joke of it, otherwise men can start to feel very emasculated.’ Thankfully, an unflappable Brit, Dean Pollen, is on hand to act as mediator on our trip. Not only is he a no-nonsense sort of chap (he appeared on hit TV show Gladiators in 1994 and, so he tells it, was only knocked out when Shadow and Hunter ganged up on him), but since setting up his own luxury-chalet business in the French resort of Chamonix six years ago, has become an old-hand at dealing with the sensitivities of skiing.
‘It does bring out a strong competitive streak, so we are used to treading a thin line and trying to please everyone,’ says 42-year-old Pollen. ‘The great thing about Chamonix is that it caters for all abilities – from those who are learning to ski to those who want to tackle some of the most extreme skiing in the world.’
So, for the testosterone hungry, there’s the Vallée Blanche or worse. And for my wife and her ilk a morning skiing with a charming personal instructor, Audrey, followed by an afternoon in the spa of a newly opened hotel called Les Granges d’en Haut in Chamonix Les Houches, where guests retreat to one of 14 sumptuous three-storey log cabins built around a central reception building that boasts a restaurant, spa, swimming pool and even a mediation service of sorts in the spa complex – après-ski yoga for couples. Here, you can unwind from a day’s rivalry (or settle old scores) by pulling and stretching each other’s tired, weary limbs. Pollen’s solution to ‘piste envy’, as the survey dubs it, is to keep warring couples apart during the day. ‘Quite a few couples choose to spend the day apart. It gives them a welcome break from each other. ‘My aim is to provide a holiday where everyone can do their own thing and then meet up with their husbands or the rest of their family in the evening. Quite a lot of women get bored of all the competitive thing and take refuge in the spa or by going shopping. But there are many women skiers who really want a challenge and I aim to please them, too. That’s why I talk to everyone before they arrive. You get a good sense about the dynamics of a couple’s relationship and how to keep the balance.’
When clients are paying up to £2,500 a head for a peak week in a Pollen-Brooks chalet (the second half of the team is his wife Serena, maiden name Brooks), happiness is a must. ‘You are basically getting your own boutique hotel,’ explains Pollen. Each chalet has a ‘concierge’ who will arrange anything and everything that guests want. And that really does mean anything.
Last New Year’s Eve, Pollen answered his mobile to be told that one of his guests, a British banker, needed a car for the night. ‘He was staying in another of the chalets we have in Chamonix and wanted to visit a friend in another resort, Megève,’ he says. ‘He asked for something a little bit special to transport his family over there.’ Six hours, a dozen phone calls and £2,500 later the vehicle was delivered – a gigantic Hummer complete with tinted windows and three bottles of £360-a-pop Cristal champagne chilling in the back.
Pollen is himself, by his own admission, quite a competitive sort. Even the blackest of black runs fails to faze him. ‘Let’s nail it,’ is his approach to even the most vertical of slopes. No doubt his attitude stood him in good stead when he and his wife gave up their well-paid jobs to move to France. But it could perhaps explain why he skis with male friends every Tuesday rather than traversing the slopes with his lovely wife Serena. If you really can’t face being shown up by an über-blonde in a designer ski suit, why not follow the recent example of a visiting dignitary from Saudi Arabia? Simply hand over the cash and book your own ski lift and run for your exclusive use. Wives and girlfriends definitely not allowed.