Early season ski touring.

Our Base Camp.

 Bill and Greg arrived for their annual weeks ski touring with me. Ski touring requires at least decent settled weather. Yet the forecast was anything but. All my plans in preparation for  interesting tours had  been up ended. Nevertheless we still accomplished a lot of exciting skiing:

Actually on the Monday, the weather was slightly better than forecast although there was high cloud which gave a sort of luminosity to the day.

However  I felt we could probably do something more interesting than we had thought possible the night before. So literally the moment I picked up Bill and  Greg we headed off to Liddes, [my new favourite ski resort] which is about an hours drive in the direction of the Gd St Bernard pass.  We parked the car and then bought three one-way passes at the bargain price of CHF 15. each. We travelled through the lift- system using 2/3 of it which consisted of a 1960s chair and a equally old T-bar.  We then headed up and climbed the Bec Ronde.

Bill on some scetchy ground just before the summit of Bec Ronde

We eat lunch on the summit and then ski down the magnificent wild and remote Valley the only thing was that the snow was to say the least challenging.  but this was more than made up for by the scenery and the setting. We returned via a track to the lift station.

The only other person we sawall day eating his sandwiche on the summit

The day was completed by a visit to the roadside fondue  vending machine.  A unique experience for anyone or anyone who loves melted cheese.

On the Tuesday we awoke up to the foehn wind.  Chamonix was horrible and a grey and a warm wind was just stripping all the snow. Show we took a trip through the "magic snow tunnel" to Courmayeur.  As we came out of the tunnel it was snowing hard. We enjoyed a brilliant day skiing Off piste in un tracked powder before returning back to the Foehn in Chamonix.

On the Wednesday we came up with a radical different plan and headed to St Luc in the Val d'Annvers.

We skied Off-piste from the list list them in really very cold conditions before heading up on skins to the hotel Weisshorn which we intend to use as a base for the next two nights. It was built in 1882 and has remained largely the same since. It is an exceptional place to visit.

Hotel Weisshorn

Thursday we awoke to indifferent weather but still decided to head out and see if the weather improved. It did improve enough to give his encouragement to continue but then, after we done some rather tricky kick turns the weather socked in leaving is it leaving us in a white out on the summit of the Toûno. 

The Toûno

 Yet we were able to navigate off the top and find the entrance to the fantastic North Couloir which provided us with a stunning descent followed by a hours skin back to the hotel where the weather has improved enough for us to have a celebratory beer on the terrace.

Bill& Greg in the north couloir

On the Friday the day dawned clear and the weather was beautiful this was the first good stella day of the week.  No flat light, no wind just blue skies.  We zoomed up to just below the summit of Pointe de Tourtenage. [we did not go to the actual summit, because it had been blasted by the wind, and there was no snow.]

After a quick bite to eat we headed down the rather steep north face. 

looking towards the Touteneage.

Bill eating lunch

 This was somewhat thought-provoking not least because it had a load of wind slab at the top. We skied cautiously one at a time until the slope mellowed somewhat and we had excellent skiing all the way down to the piste.  From where we skied all the way down to the village.

Steep descent

Fabulous skiing