It’s the annual end of season party this weekend at Lake Annecy Ski Resorts, culminating with the remarkable ‘Defy Foly’ event in La Clusaz.
While many resorts have fun sprint contests encouraging fancy dressed skiers and boarders to try to slide across a pool of melt water, La Clusaz has, for the past 26 years, taken things to another level and asks them to try to cross a large lake from the bottom of a snow slope on their skis or boards.
Taking place this year on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th April 2014 it sees sportsmen and women competing on skis, mono skis, snowboards, or anything that slides!
Over 150 competitors compete each year in front of thousands of spectators trying to slide the longest distance over the Confins Lake. All do it for fun but some seriously try to break the distance record.
So far nobody has yet succeeded in completely crossing the 180 metre long lake but a gentleman called Philippe Troubat got close in 2010 – making it 155 metres across.
But the star attraction of this weekend is the ‘OGNI’ event, otherwise known as Unidentified Floating Objects (UFOs), in which anything goes.
These elaborate creations provide a hilarious end to the event, as the spectators witness their sometimes catastrophic descent into the icy waters of the Confins Lake in the exceptional surroundings of the Confins, overlooked by the magnificent Aravis mountains.
On Sunday, around noon, the resort will also celebrate the Freeride World Champion title of La Clusaz’s Loïc Collomb-Patton (and the Junior champions also from the region, Illona Carlod and Arthur Raskin) at the lake.