Saturday 26 January 2008

Snowshoeing off to a great start in 2008!

The snowshoeing and skiing season are off to a superb start this month with good snow cover everywhere and lots of sunny weather. We had a good open week from 5th January: although this week started with rain at 1500m (almost unknown here in January) this soon turned to snow and after a day of cloud we were treated to better weather for the rest of the week, with fresh snow to run down every day. Everyone in the group was new to snowshoeing but even on the first day with hardly any views the general consensus was that snowshoeing was a great activity - in fact the actual quote from our Irish member was that "Snowshoeing is the dog's b***ocks!!". So that more or less settled it for the week and conditions just got better and better.

Last week I had a private group snowshoeing in Switzerland around the Val d'Anniviers Val d'Hérens region and we found some excellent new (to me anyway) walks on snowshoes. Conditions could not have been better - fresh snow, sunshine and virtually no-one around, so no human tracks - however there was an abundance of wildlife activity.

We managed to reach a 3000m summit on the last day but the red morning sky correctly forecast the following day's snowfall, adding another top-up to what at the moment is perfect snow cover for this time of the winter. Let's hope it lasts!