Great Snow in the low resorts

The theme of these last few blogs is stay low. It has been very cold and the snow in the lower resorts has been as good as it gets. However high up the wind has been wrecking the snow making it heavy , dangerous and difficult to ski. With this in mind I travelled again to St Gervais with Susannah Frieze and many of her friends. Susannah apparently won a chalet holiday in a raffle!! We skied in the trees [and sometimes just over the trees.]
Yesterday we skied in Les Contamines where we had a very good morning and then after lunch the sun came out contrary to all the weather forecasts which was wonderful for the visibility but it got very hot and wrecked the snow a bit.

Lots of different stuff

The weather continues to bring lots of cold snow which is great. On Thursday I was out in the thick of it with Nick Rowles learning about snow safety at Le Tour. It was bitterly cold.
On Friday Chris Boulton returned with eight of his pals and we went to Combloux and skied [and fell in various streams] the beautiful valley to Gietaz before having a late lunch at the Christomet.
Overnight it snowed a lot. So much so that everything was closed in Chamonix. We headed to St Gervais where not only did we have fantastic snow but the sun came out and we were able to get first tracks off the summit of Mt Joly in near perfect deep light powder.

Six days with the Flying Grannies

Once again the Flying Grannies have totaly shattered me. They have an average age of 70 years, they are out of the door at 8.30am and don't stop skiing until it goes dark. They hate skiing on the piste [too icy and too crowded] instead they like nothing better than "zooming" around in the trees, or completeing long remote descents in un tracked snow.

What a Day.

Chris Dovell and Simon Warren and I went to explore behind Les Marcottes. We took the lift up to the top of the resort and then climbed up to the La Golette in just over an hour. At the top we were greeted with a spectacular view of the Dent du Midi. We skied down to the lake in powder over fabulous undulating terrain. We then stuck the skins on again and climbed up to the Col d'Emaney with Chris ploughing a track for us.
We were greeted by another jaw dropping view. We then skied down some complicated terrain into a deserted valley. Getting out of the valley was not without interest, but just added to the adventure. A brilliant day in the wild mountains where we saw no one.

The best turns so far this season

I was back in Les Contamines today to ski with Simon. In the morning we skied off piste in very good powder. In the afternoon we hopped over the Col de Fenetre and skied all the way down the Gorge to the car.

Come To Megeve and ski for free

BUT only if you are a women. Megeve had what I consider a bizzare promotion where by on this particular Sunday if you were female you could ski for free. But there were apparently going to be no free skis days for males planned. Anyway we skied off piste in snowy conditions and had a very good time. We finished with an excellent late lunch at the Christomet.

An Introduction to Chamonix on Snow shoes.

I spent a couple of very pleasant in the company of Nancy Cooper wandering around the quiet forests of the Chamonix valley. Walter joined us too and loved it.

Above the clouds

As so often is the case you make your own luck. We left Chamonix in thick mist and slippy roads and headed for Verbier. We headed for the Savoleyers side. As we rode the tiny bubble we popped out of the fog to clear blue skies. I called Air Glacier and they sent a helicopter to take us all to the summit of the Rosa Blanche where we landed in perfect conditions. We skied down to Siviez where we had a late lunch before picking up the lift system that took us back over to Verbier and back down into thick Fog.

Florence gets 3rd Place in the Anglo-Sottish Championships

Florence took two days off school to compete in the Anglo- Scottish Cup on Monday and Tuesday. The races were held at Les Houches during a heavy snow fall. There were two sets of giant slalom races. Florence came third in both races.

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.

50 cm of Snow last night and today

This was the first significant dump of snow this year and it is just what is needed to get everyone excited about the forth coming season.

Mark the Mountain Guide British Tour

I spent last week back in the UK visiting some schools and talking about how and why I wrote the Mark the Mountain Guide books. I used real pictures to show the children where I got the inspiration for the stories. I finished each talk by showing them all how an Avalanche Beeper worked. I got the children to pass the Beeper around rather like pass the parcel. When I said stop the child who had the bleeper was asked to hide it up their jumper with out me seeing it. It was then up to me to search for the hidden bleeper.
I visited five schools: Folds School, Deepdene and West Hove Infants school [all in the Brighton area]Next I visited Thorngrove School near Newbury and lastly I spent the day at Brookham School in Liphook.

Giant Black Pudding spotted over Chamonix

So I was out cutting the lawn for probably the last time this year when suddenly a giant black pudding passed over head.

Our new Crag that seemingly appeared overnight

The other day I was out walking the dog on a path I have used for the last eight years when suddenly I noticed a sign post pointing to a "Site d'escalade." I duly followed the sign into the woods and sure enough there was a giant boulder the size of a house. The boulder had been scrubbed clean and a couple of belay bolts drilled into its summit.
It was as if the boulder had fallen out of the sky because I had never noticed it before.

Making the most of Autumn in the Alps

After our day above Champex Reuben and I drove through the Mt Blanc Tunnel and went to climb in the Val Ferret where we did the long route Genepi. Due to its southerly aspect we were in the sun all day ... until we started the rapell descent when it started to drizzle. We just managed to make it back to our rucksacks before the rain settled in for the afternoon.
Next day again the weather was good so we went back through the Mt Blanc tunnel but this time took the cable car into the Valley Blanche from where we climbed the Aiguille du Toule.
Thursday - the forecast was not great so we decided to brush up on our Ice climbing Skills by heading up to the Mer De Glace. The rain did hold off until mid afternoon but when it started it chucked it down.
Friday was again back to the standard we expect. Cold and clear. We headed up to climb above Argentiere. No trip to this area would be complete without an ascent of the Aiguillette de Agentiere.

Another great day on the LA DYURE "L'EPERON DU DARD

This climb is so good that I just wanted to show it to as many people as possible. To day I climbed the route with Reuben Berg. The leaves are starting to turn which just added to the splendeur of the crag. The weather has been perfect for the last two weeks.

New Climbs New Areas

One thing I love more than anything is exploring new climbs and going to new areas. This is exactly what Peter Little and I did last week. There is a new [ish ] crag up above Champex just over in Switzerland where we climbed two routes created by the well known Verbier Guide Olivier Roduit. The first was the reasonably hard Luc 6a+. The second was the much easier but no less impressive L'Eperon du Dard. This is long rock climb the winds itself up a long spur through spectacular scenary.
Other notable routes we climbed were in the Val Ferret where we climbed the route Genepi. This was a huge slab on perfect granit. What was also great about the week was that we only saw one other set of climbers.