Bad snow good snow

It doesn't really matter if you have a base of 10 meters of snow or a base of 1 meter of snow if its all rock hard and icy. Your going to get fairly indifferent off-piste skiing conditions. Well we had loads of snow and at the beginning of the week and it was all bullet hard. Fiona and Reuben and I headed for Les Contamines where the weather was beautiful although there was evidence of some significant avalanches on the south facing slopes. The snow had subsequently frozen leaving a surface less than great for skiing on.

Wednesday we skied at Le Tour . The skiing was good , but still the snow was hard packed. Thursday everything changed - It snowed heavily all day. When its snowing you need trees so that you have definition. Chamonix doesn't have any decent off-piste tree skiing so we headed for St Gervais which does. The skiing was wonderfully varied with the obligatory stream to negotiate and some thigh deep powder. Lunch was good too. There are so many great place to eat in St Gervais.

On the Friday . Everything came together. We were blessed with a cold clear day fresh snow and no wind . We skied at Flegere and had one of those good as it gets days .

Excess Boys 2018

Each year they come back and there is always the discussion of how long we have actually been skiing together. It seems that the core group have been back for 27 years which is a scarily long time. Mind you there are always new recruits to the group. This year the Excess Boys turned up with another candidate. A rather secretive chap who never revealed his real name. He clearly had had an interesting life. I learned that he had been the body double for Pierce Brosnan in the iconic bungee jump off the Emosson Dam in the James Bond film "Golden Eye," [not the actual jump but the Computer Generated Images, because he was the same height as Pierce.] Currently employed by the London Metropolitan Police he had recently been moved to a desk job in preparation for his imminent retirement from the Elite Police Sniper Team. This, I was told, is part of the dedicated hostage & siege unit which deals with Kidnappings and hostage taking. I learnt that the team deal with over 300 incidents a year and have the availability of six helicopters to rush them about London. It is truly quite remarkable the different people I meet through my job as a Mountain Guide. Off course the rest of the group was made up of more ordinary individuals , Chris, James, Adam, Kevin , Steve and Pete. We headed up to Le Tour , where the skiing was very good.

I also judged it was important to give everyone a recap on the use of avalanche transceivers, because even ex members of the Royal Marine Commandos sometimes need a recap. We manged to find a beautiful place to practice searching for buried transceivers. We even had the back drop of the famous Dam which you can just see in the background.

Such was the snow depth this season , we were able to ski in areas we had never previously visited and we got into some spectacular situations.

All in all the scene was very special

On the Sunday we all met at Les Grande Montets cable car station . I say all, yet we were a man down . Our James Bond extra, Police Sniper , ex mountain warfare Commando felt that the proposed days itinerary skiing amongst the seracs and crevasses of the Argentiere glacier was all a bit ordinary. Instead he decided he would be better off honing his telemark skiing technique on his own. The rest of the group may not have his killer instincts but they are as tough as nails; Faced with a queue for the top cable car at Les Grands Montets they elected to skin up instead of waiting in line with the rest of the world. This is either crazy or wonderful depending on your point of view. Their effort was rewarded because the snow conditions were such that we were able to make a high traverse through the seracs on the glacier des Rognons. If there is a more spectacular place to ski , then I haven't seen it.

The run then finishes with a ski under the North Face of Les Doites before skiing down onto the Argentiere glacier.

We then had a bit of a fail. I suggested we skin up the glacier to where there was a sunny spot for a picnic lunch. The only issue was the sun kept moving faster than we could skin. Eventually we just gave up and eat our lunch on the sunless glacier. But it was probably a small price to pay for an excellent day out.

Skiing in the Dolomites

Possibly the last time there was such a massive avalanche risk , the internet didn't really exist. Therefore I had never seen a forecast like the one in the above picture. The northern alps were pretty much in total avalanche lock down , schools were closed. At the top of the Chamonix valley people were blocked in their houses in Montroc and Le tour for several days. Fortunately I had a long term commitment in the Dolomites which happily coincided with this chaos. Instead I headed off to the Dolomites with Francis Bridgeman. The plan was to meet up with Francis extended family. Down there it was the complete polar-opposite to the northern alps. The Dolomites had loads of cold fresh snow. At night the temperature was -15c. By contrast the temperature in Chamonix was +5c. We were staying Val Gardena in an apartment opposite the World Cup Down Hill in the village of St Christina. On our first day we decided to start by doing the famous Sella Ronda tour which seemed like a good way off sussing where the best skiing might be. This wasn't great , because the weather was very windy and the visibility wasn't great. Further still the Sella Ronda tour was packed. Nevertheless we did find some areas which had fantastic tree skiing with huge potential for the following days. Basically the conclusion I came to was that the skiing is good as long as you stay away from the Sella Ronda circus. At the beginning of the week we skied from the resort of Plan de Gralba. This is truly when we realized we had hit the off piste skiing jack pot. The first clue was when people kept on stopping us and asking us why are skis were so different? No one skis off-piste. There are just acres and acres of un tracked snow in plain sight.

Plus the general scenery makes it a worthy recipient of UNESCO world heritage status.

Later in the week we decided to explore further a field and headed over to the Cinque Torri area above Cortina. This is an area I had climbed at a lot but never skied.

As we arrived we were disappointed to see that the area had suffered a hammering by the wind. But after a bit of scouting we found some breath taking good descents.

When we returned to the car park we then saw how the Italian Tax Man works . He drives into the car park and looks around for the Lamborghini's, Maserati's etc . Traces the number plates to the owners. Then he waits by the car to ask the driver how he can afford a quarter of a million euro car when he has an annual income of around 30,000 euros? If the answers in not satisfactory the Tax Man impounds the car.

A night in the Grand St Bernard Monastery

I left Chamonix at 9.00am with the intention of meeting Laura and Marco on the road to Gd St Bernard at about 10.00am. I drove up to the Swiss/French boarder at Chatelard and the conversation with the Garde-Frontier Officer went something like this:

Officer - "Where are you going?"

Me - "Gd St Bernard Monastery."

Officer- "The col is closed."

Me - "I know , Im going to go on skis"

Officer - "The col is closed"

Me - " I know, Im a Mountain Guide and I am going to go on skis"

Officer - "The col is closed."

The conclusion, I was rapidly coming to, was that I was speaking to a fucking idiot. Then the Officer smirked and decided to be a little less monosyllabic and said the Col du Forclaz was closed by a massive rock fall , which had just happened at 6.00am. [This is the final col on the road between Chamonix and Martigny.]

There was no practical way by road, so I dumped the car and took the train to Martigny which I would concede is more ecological but I am going to need incentivizing a little more than paying 40chf for the train. Basically 1chf/minute. Still needs must. Marco and Laura picked me up at Martigny station and we drove to the road head at the now defunct Super St Bernard Ski station. We stuck our skins on and headed up the track. The weather was beautiful , but like so often in this area it was windy and cold. We stopped for a picnic lunch in one of the emergency shelters.

After our picnic the temperature had dropped further and I was struggling to keep warm despite skinning up hill. Yet when we arrived at Monastery and went slightly over the col there was suddenly no wind and beautiful snow.

We headed off above the Monastery so that we might get the chance to ski the great snow.

The snow did not disappoint.

We enjoyed a very relaxed evening consuming some of the local Pinot Noir. The next day we headed out and skied across the border and into Italy. Our goal for the day was to climb Mt Fouchon. The conditions were good ,

bordering on excellent. We made the summit in about two and half hours. We then skied back more or less the same way. The snow was very good and the quality of the skiing was as good as I have had in this area. We passed the Monastery and then skied back to the car where Marco and Laura stuck me back on the train to France.

Skiing Conditions were perfect then along came the dreaded Foehn wind

Towards the end of 2016 the skiing conditions low down in the classic resorts of Megeve were perfect. On 29th December , as they have done for the 10 years Stephen Yeates and Steve Trantum joined me. It was wonderfully cold and crisp -15c. The snow was light and fluffy and it hadn't been destroyed by the wind , [which was the case in the higher resorts.] We skied in St Gervais.

Then the weather changed. Overnight there was a 20c increase. The temperature shot up and it rained. Once the rain stopped the clouds parted and it froze hard. This had the effect of creating a crust. A crust which was akin to skiing through broken paving slabs. In places it was horrendous because it was impossible to stay on the surface and you would break through and the crust would then cut into your shins. Despite this we did manage to climb to the top of le Petit Croisse Baulet high above Combloux where the view didn't disappoint.

Happy New Year 2018. On New Years Eve it snowed and got cold again. On News Years Day I was joined by Peter Whelan, for what turned out to be the "Perfect Storm of conditions. It set us up with fabulous skiing. Firstly not being hung over is good , although not as important as 30 cm of cold snow overnight. New years day is always quiet. Once we were up on the slopes the lift from the bottom broke down effectively meaning we were in our own private ski resort with all the lifts running and 30 cm of powder. The skiing in the comb Lachanel was sublime. The photo might encapsulate the saying "Life is timing?"

The day was so good that I persuaded Peter that he should delay going back to the UK. We skied in Courmayeur in conditions which were only quite good , relative to New Years Day. AND THAT WAS THAT. Next day it rained and rained and rained All the snow was trashed , the foehn kicked in , there was flooding in Chamonix and the roads were grid locked and the avalanche risk shot up to maximum 5. Even walking the dog became a potentially deadly experience

All skiing pretty much stopped , what was open wasn't really worth doing - it was like going through the motions . The Foehn continued to strip all the snow in Chamonix , not unlike last year. The only chance in these conditions is to go through the Mt Blanc tunnel and ski in Courmayeur. Charles Sherwood and I left Chamonix with an air temperature of 10c. Through the tunnel it was 0c. In just 12 km, Plus it was snowing. The skiing was okay , nothing exceptional but a thousand times better than anything in France. Mind you I have often wondered why the track down the Val Veni is not an official piste. The answer awaited us at the end of the day: A massive avalanche blocked the route and took quite a while to negotiate.

Wonderful pre Christmas skiing conditions.

Above are two photos of exactly the same place, the buvet at the Le Buet cascade. One is taken on Christmas day 2016 and one taken on Christmas Eve 2017 as we skied past. The skiing pre Christmas this year has been the best in years . The coverage being so good that it allowed me to ski descent routes I had never previously done, like Trappe Gulley. This starts at the Trappe Chair lift at La Flegere and ends up by the river Arve above Les Tines. This was a rare chance to ski with my eldest daughter Andrea who was fresh back from winning the 2017 Varsity ski race in Tignes.

Needless to say there were a few navigational challenges and cliffs to slalom around

The conditions were so good that our family friends Jeff & Faerthen flew all the way from California to take advantage of the conditions. Again the skiing at La Flegere did not disappoint.

On Christmas Eve,my middle daughter Florence joined us on her first proper ski tour and we headed up to the col du Beaugeant, high above La Flegere. The big challenge with this was the heat - It was so warm that the climbing up was sapping our energy. Added to which the col has some climbing at the top and then a long rappel on the north side

After the rappel it was skiing all the way. Even with the snow at the top being somewhat cruddy this caused Florence zero issues;

Christmas Day. After last years no snow we were determined to try and ski as a family on Christmas Day.

We skied at Les Grands Montets which was great apart from the snow which was bone hard. The wind had stripped the cover and conditions were shockingly poor, [at least in my opinion ] yet it didn't stop the girls racing down to a delicious Christmas lunch at the Cremerie.

The Guru. The Master. The Maestro

I recently returned from a British Mountain Guides training course which really did strip everything back to basics. It started by reviewing how to walk up and down hill... Or for that matter walk anywhere. Have you considered if you walk with your feet closer together you go further because each stride length will be fractionally longer? The course venue was to be in the famous climbing town of Finale Borgio, about 35mins drive west of Genoa Italy and about four hours south of Chamonix. It was to be run by the man who single handily invented the concept of climbing coaching. Paolo Caruso. Paolo is very famous in the Italian climbing community and has become renowned for his teaching methods and results. Paolo has systematically broken down all the climbing ,ice climbing and skiing movements into quantifiable blocks. His system is known as the "Caruso Method." The course can be distilled down to

"how to change or move from one most advantageous position to another. At this point , the importance of the study of progression become evident" from Mountaineering on snow and Ice by Paolo Caruso

The course convened as most things do in Italy with a Cappuccino in the exquisite cafe in an equally exquisite hill top village of Verrazzi. Apart from the group of British Guides , we had invited a couple off local Italian Guides to join us too. Sergio and Giovanni. Mountain Guides are notorious for being unable to organize themselves when the group consists entirely of Guides, yet the first potential hiccup was brilliantly anticipated by getting Cain Olsen to co ordinate the whole trip. Cain is a member of the BMG and the Italian Guides and lives in Finale. He is a bilingual Guide. Why do we need a bilingual Guide? Because unbeknown to the rest of us, Paolo did not feel confident enough to deliver the course in English. [The reader would probably identify this is a key problem.] So the course kicked off with an explanation of what pricked Paolo's interest in developing his Methodology. He explained that when he first went climbing , he was told he was quite good. Yet when he asked how he could improve , he was told : By doing lots of climbing and gaining experience. The problem is that gaining experience can be a hard lesson in our sport. There is a logic still very prevalent today in that the only way to learn is from your mistakes, but and it is a big BUT in climbing sometimes the lesson can get you killed. According to Paolo no one seemingly wanted to teach him the basic movement skills which are the building blocks with which to progress.

We started like most of the best climbing courses I have ever been on , in the car park. Paolo produced a bag off wooden blocks and got us to walk on them. Easy at first but with the series of sequencing he introduced it became difficult in the sense that you were required to think.

Next we headed up to the crag. What a setting high up on the cliffs which looked out over the Mediterranean sea. Yet instead off climbing Paolo discussed how we should teach people to make big step ups in a way so as to reduce the stress on the knees and be as atomically efficient as possible. This was a revelation.

We gradually moved on to actually rock climbing. Paolo's aim was to pass on four key base positions from which all climbing movements commence. Day Two We reconvened in another beautiful location the restaurant / Hotel : Agriturismo I Lamöi. We did some recapping on the previous days points. Next Paolo introduced the concept of homoloteral movement and cross movement progression. What this means is that if you are walking with trekking poles, you should move your right foot and left arm. Not your right arm and right foot,[homolateral] because you are less stable and prone to "barn dooring." The same would go for ice climbing. Obvious ,but weirdly very difficult to relearn how to walk. [Imagine how a baby crawls? It learns to cross crawl otherwise it fall flat on its face.] We then headed up to our own private crag [which was owned by the Cafe.] Paulo devised a series of exercises which were designed to put his theory into practice. He did this by sticking masking tape on the holds he wanted us to use. Blue tape for the feet white tape for the hands.

Suffice it to say it is difficult to explain in the written form in a way that would not bore you senseless, but it is my aim to incorporate what I learned into my own Guiding bag of skills. My big regret is that no one told me any this when I started climbing 40 years ago.

Alpine climbing season ends for 2017

David Ford managed to carve out three days to come and join me and climb in the Chamonix area. In my view early October can be one of the best times to be here. It is much quieter, colder, which makes it safer because the mountains are less likely to fall apart and the autumn colours add a layer of beauty to the alpine scene. There is a price to pay in that a lot of the infrastructure is also closed interms of cables cars and mountain huts and therefore the choice of where to climb is more limited. Yet with local knowledge and a certain flexibility there are many places to go climbing which are magnificent. 4th October With a stellar forecast we set off for Switzerland and drove up to the Emosson Dam . We climbed the Aiguille Van. This is an excellent straight forward climb which has a variety of scrambling and finishes on a very prominent summit with views in a 360 degree vista.

5th October. The Cosmiques Arete. Of its type , it is one of the best routes in the alps , if not the world. Fast access via the Aiguille du Midi whips you up to 3842m in no time at all. Again the problem in the summer is that the route has become untenable for the reasons just mentioned. It is a product of its own successes and there are many hours of queuing which no matter how good a climb it is , the esthetics are destroyed.

We walked onto the cable car and we were the only climbers among the tourists. At the top we gearered up , and headed down the ridge we were alone. It was all going perfectly until we caught up what appeared to be an entire battalion of the French Alpine army. Just our luck to have chosen the same day as them to do this iconic climb.

I did however manage to persuade the officers in charge of each group [ fellow Mountain Guides ] that David and I could pass and overtake them . So despite the climb being busy we were not hindered and we could enjoy the perfect conditions and weather.

6th October. Well although I keep claiming the weather always is best in October , this particular day wasn't one of them. At least in the morning. Nevertheless the afternoon was good and we enjoyed some excellent rock climbing at the ever reliable Les Gaillands crag .