Inspirational skiers.

 

Mt Collon and the Arolla valley.

I have known Peter Folkman for well over thirty years. In fact he was one of my first ever clients when I became a Guide.  We have enjoyed some incredible journeys together and he is the only client I have actually climbed Mt Blanc twice with.  Each time on skis.

This time he was back with his very good friend Robert Pattullo.  Our plan this time was to go on a road trip and return to some of the western alps esoteric ski areas.

We warmed up by skiing off the back of Le Tour and heading over the border and down  into Switzerland.  

As ever we were always on a set up of good off piste skis with a touring bindings.  This allowed Robert to experince his first ski tour.  Despite having enjoyed a life time of off-piste skiing , he had left it to his 80th year to take up this part of the sport.

Robert at the top of his 1st ski tour.

Looking towards the Valais up the Rhone Valley.

After we finished skiing we set off and drove around to Arolla- Now Arolla[ in my opinion] could well be a contender for the best ski resort in the world:

1    It is not easy to get to - therefore few people.

2    The village is at 2000meters- so has reliable snow. 

3    By a quirk it has the highest tree line in the alps - beautiful "Arolla Pine" trees  which not only add to the majesty but also provide wonderful tree skiing which on bad weather powder days mean you can see where your going.

4    Next it has a perfect ski area which fundamentally has two main Poma lifts [nothing so advanced as a chair lift] Yet critically the second Poma lift spits you out at 3000 meters, where there are manicured pistes where  if you see another person you say hello to them.  Yet for our purposes the drag puts you in a position to ski vast areas of off piste skiing. Plus its the starting point for day tours.

5    Added to which there is the most wonderful hotel from which to base your self.  The Kurhaus .  This is one is  in Swiss Historic Hotels group.  It is perfect. As you walk in you are greeted by a big log fire and afternoon tea . What's more the food is marvellous.

So everything was set up well the plan was going well - but as the saying goes; the first casuality of the war is the plan.  Peter turned up at breakfast with full blown lurgy - which in this day and age could be a variety of ailments...

Suddenly all the all the adavantages of Arolla being so remote, became its big problem.  The main one being the nearest doctor was several hundred meters lower down the valley.    Yet Switzerland is not Brexit-Britain [with all its promises of a reinvigated NHS.]  Instead we turned up at the surgery, where we were greeted by a delightful nurse who offered Robert & I a coffee while Peter was seen immediately.  

Twenty minutes later, complete with results of a comprehensive blood test   Peter was told that death wasn't yet iminent, and he had good old fashioned Flu. He was packed off with a bag full of medcines and told to go back to bed.  

Meanwhile Robert and I went to explore the vast ski area which Arolla has to offer.

Looking towards the Arolla metropolis. 

By the time we returned from skiing Peter's health had dramatically improved.  Yet the weather forecast was the contraire: we were looking at a situation where so much snow was predicted  that there was a reasonable chance we would get stuck in Arolla- snow bound.

So in the morning  we returned to Chamonix.

The next day there was too much snow and the resort was shut.  Fortunately there is the Mt Blanc tunnel which allowed us to visit  "another parallel universe" of blue skies and untracked powder- We ended up in La Thuile.

This was to be our stand out day

La Thuile at its very best.

.

Peter feeling better.

Yet we were not the only ones to be taking advantage of this wonderful resort - albeit eveyone else was skiing on the piste .  We did hit an enormous queue .

As good as any reason to ski with a Guide.

Which could have been a disaster - but being able to use the Mountain Professionals priority lane made me popular with Peter and Robert - but undoubtedly less so with hundreds of others.

On our final day Chamonix was still closed - so we returned through the Mt Blanc tunnel , this time to Courmayeur - although my intial smugness of escaping Chamonix's bad weather backfired because Courmayeur too was experiencing very high winds which limited what lifts were open.  We skied as much as we could but had to content ourselves with Cappuccino stops and eventually an excellent lunch.

Peter & Robert : Very determined characters.