Four seasons in one week.

 There is no way to dress it up -March was a shocking month in terms of ski conditions.  It snowed once, but not with actual snow, but sand, Sahara sand.  Everything was left with a brown tinge.  Needless to say this was less than ideal.

Hugo Goisnard skiing in the Sahara.

Yet as it is so often the case, April brings a change in the weather patterns [April Showers] and the day after John Young arrived to ski with me, it snowed a lot.

On our first day together we were treated to  some of the best skiing conditions of the winter, off the back of Le Tour.

Not bad for a 1st morning.

On our second day we went ski touring behind Le Brevent setting of over Le Col Cornu.  It had been our intention to climb the Aiguille de Glieres, but were thwated by too much unconsolidated snow.

Descending off Aiguille de Glieres after failing to get up it.

 Nevetheless we contented ourselves with some good skiing down to Lac Noir before skiing over the Col Glieres and descending back into the Flgere lift system via the Combe Lachenal.

On our third day, still in good weather we went to Grands Montets. After a few runs, we put our skins on and headed over onto the Argentiere glacier.

Seracs on glacier Rognan

Afterwhich we skied down and enjoyed an excellent late lunch at the Chalet Lognan.

Then the weather changed for the worse.  Everything in Chamonix was closed because of the avalanche risk, so we went through the Mt Blanc Tunnel to Courmayeur.  Here the conditions were marginally better in the sense that the resort was open, although at times it appeared to be for our exclusive use.

Eventually we ended up in the "Rifugio Maison Vieille"  for a couple of giant pizza's and some beer.

During our final two days together the conditions did improve in the sense we got some more snow, but the weather was challanging and so it was too dangerous to try any further ski touring . We skied off-piste from the Grands Montets lift system staying mainly in the trees and skiing mostly untracked , but heavy powder, hardly a sob story.

Lots of untracked snow at Les Grands Montets.