Stranger than fiction

There is a great story in to days Guardian about a guy hiding from the police in the Val Ferret. I passed this guy first in the middle of Septemeber and then in October on the way to climb the route Genepi at the head of the Val Ferret. I thought he seemed a bit of a hermit but it never crossed my mind that he was on the US most wanted list. Click on the tittle to read the link.

If you are coming all the way from Denver to ski it better be good

Don Hazell brought his family all the way from Denver to ski in Chamonix. They arrived to a perfect script of cold snowy weather. But all that changed as a vicious Foehn kicked in and closed the lifts. So on our first day we headed to St Gervais. Where we found some heavy but un tracked snow and importantly an excellent lunch at the Ravoire.
Overnight the temperature shot up and it lashed it down. We arrived at Les Grands Montets to find the normal chaos of no one knowing when or if it was going to open. So we canned the day.
Don Nick and Merisa were disappointed because they had heard so much about the mythic status of Grands Montets.
The next day we reconvened to try again and were rewarded with untracked snow all day long and they left feeling well skied.

Skiing with Florence

Florence teacher was ill to day so she got the afternoon off school and we went skiing at Grands Montets. I needed to take some photos for a mountain safety talk I am working on. Florence was the ski model!

The Skiing has started!!

Andrea Florence and I went up to Les Grands Montets this afternoon to find our ski legs. The snow was great which is more than can be said about the lift. Same old tired cable cars, same old queue, [forty minutes to wait at the bottom] No thought about opening the adjacent chair lift. But despite all this we had a good time.