Hotel Weisshorn- Wonderful.

Simon Sherwood makes his way up under the Touma.

By a set of coincidnces I returned to the Weisshorn Hotel twice in a week.   The second time was with the "Sherwood clan" whom consisted of Charles - [my long time "partner in crime"] plus his brother Simon and  Rachel and their daughter Saskia- who was compelety new to ski touring.

This trip had been in the diary for a long time, and as the date got nearer the weather forecast got worse. I started to have one of those "oh dear" what are we going to do thoughts because the forecast for the first day was good, then , thereafter it was poor...

We drove around to St Luc, then wrestled with the car parking app because this is the only way to pay. But there is only sketchy mobile coverage making it difficult and highly annoying.  Fourtunatly Rachel was far more adept at this than me.

The snow was good, but the visibility kept coming and going which made off piste skiing a challange.  Plus the ski tour to the hotel meant breaking trail through some deep untracked snow.  I was tired when we arrived and the two beers were most welcome : One for the thirst and one for the pleasure...

In the morning I was "shocked" to wake up to blue skies and perfect conditions.  This was the absolute opposite of what was forecast.  After a breakfast of boiled eggs. [ soft runny  eggs require 8 minutes at 2335 meters ] we headed out and ascended all the way to the Col de La Forcletta.

The ski back down was wonderful. The snow was great the views all around were spectacular and the beer on the terrace after of return was sublime.

The view from the dinning room at dinner - is hard to beat anywhere in the world.

On the Sunday morning the weather was very cloudy.  Infact  you couldn't see yor hand in front of your face type weather.  It was impossible to tell if you were going up hill or down hill.  It was at times difficult to tell if you were actaully moving or not.  Still the team were keen to venture out and find out what skiing blind was actually like.  Well being out in front navigating was  hard work.  After about two hours the novelty had worn off and we gingerly made our way back to the piste and skied back into St Luc from where we drove back to Chamonix.  Three varied intersting days.