Hut to Hut Ski Touring abandoned. But still it could be worse...

Spring breifly falterered handing conditions back to winter quite decisively.  This is just as Charles arrived already to go ski mountaineering for a week. 

To start with the weather was good:

We kicked of with the beautiful tour off the back of the Col du Brevent.  As we made our way through the trip the weather was deteriorating.  In the end we comfortably made it back- but then everything changed. 

Winter returned big time 

 So dramatic was the change  in weather , with a huge drop in temperature and lots of fresh snow that we had to change our plan and content our selves with skiing untracked powder in the trees of St Gervais

 On learning of our new found plan and hearing how good the skiing conditions were Tabatha, Charles daughter, dropped everything, including the baby  and headed out to join us.

Skiing in parts of Megeve which I didnt know existed

Mind you the next day, we were somewhat wrong footed.  Expecting fabulous conditions at Combloux we eagerly arrived at the station to find that it had closed for the season- despite the best conditions of the year...

I hastily came up with a paln B. We headed to Rochbrune where we skied through powder making our way to the top of the teleski de Rochfort.  At the pre Rosset we dropped off the back of the resort, before putting our skins on and heading to the col La Croix de Pierre. It was our intention to then ski down to Haute Luce and then work our way back through Les Contamines lift system.  Yet at the col conditions were not great.  Low visibility and an increasing avalanche risk.  Instead we headed to the resort of Pras sur Arley.  This was not simple - the snow was difficult to ski, we had strong winds and a river to contend with.  

minor kit malfunction

Tabatha attempting to get out of the stream

Yet we made it into the resort and even managed to find a great place to eat, yet the menu was not comphrensive due to the fact that the resort was closing in a couple of hours...

Despite the fantastic snow we were finding the resorts closing in front of us.  One resort that was still open and in incredible condition was La Thuile in Italy so we went there and enjoyed marvellous untracked powder skiing- in beautiful weather.

On our final day the weather was not clear, but it was still cold and the snow was still so we returned to St Gervais where conditions remained jaw dropingly  good. 

No one around

Looking down the Epaule towards Le Fayet