Spring has come at last!

Finally the spring has really arrived - after 6 months of deep, dark winter - well actually not all deep and dark but very, very snowy.

In the space of a week we have gone from this:

To this:

There is still loads of snow around but we've reached that wonderful time of the year when you can do a ski tour or snowshoe hike in the morning then hang out on the balcony in shorts in the afternoon - or even get a few hours at the crag if you have the energy.

Long may it last - it's amazing seeing flowers and bright green grass after 6 months of whiteness. Not that this winter hasn't been good - it's been incredible and will remain on record as exceptional for the snow cover, throughout the Alps and beyond.

There has been considerable fresh snowfall this last week in many areas and this added to the high temps mean that the avalanche risk is quite important, especially later in the day.

We'll be snowshoeing and skiing well into the May this year but for now most of us are just enjoying rediscovering ground and the joys that that offers!

Start of spring brings return of winter!

It's been hot and sunny for almost two weeks and we were getting very used to it. The snow has gone in the main valleys and the flowers are pushing up, and the new leaves beginning to appear.

But winter is not over yet it seems. High winds the last few days were definitely signs that change is a-coming and tonight it's started to rain - luckily it's forecast to get colder and snow - rain is not great for snowshoeing and skiing!

Even though it hasn't snowed for the last 12 days there is still fresh and untracked powder to be found.

Conditions have been excellent and there seem to be fewer people around - certainly we have found ourselves alone for much of the time on our snowshoe hikes. So now we're supposed to have another top-up of fresh - but the meteo people don't seem sure how much, so we'll see. Heavy snowfall on top of the hard snow on some slopes would provide potentially very dangerous avalanche conditions.....

But hopefully the sun will soon come out again and we can get back to tracking that powder and enjoying those blue sky days.

Snow sun, snow sun....and so it goes on!

It's been an interesting week in the Alps. Heavy snow-fall early last week took many of us by surprise but gave some amazing, if very cold, conditions.

Once the snow stopped though it warmed up very fast - that's the difference between March and January. Now the days are long, the sun is high in the sky and settled weather usually means those wonderful sunbathing lunches at the top of the mountain after an early morning ascent.

Of course, winter is far from over and the last few years have seen lots of fresh snow in April - we'll see this year, it feels like we've already had more than our share of the white stuff.

The high winds and sudden change in temperature mid-week left a snow-pack that was far from stable as several serious avalanches proved. It is worrying to watch the super-quick tracking by skiers and snowboarders of the slopes opposite our house, which are renowned for being prone to avalanches. Wednesday afternoon saw several wind slab slides caused by skiers and the rescue helicopter was out until dusk searching for victims.
So about 4 weeks left until Easter. I will be out snowshoeing with groups, for much of the time.

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Then summer is coming. So here's a list of treks and holidays that I will be guiding, which still have places left on them.
Mont Blanc Summits 4 July
Tour of the matterhorn 12 July
Mont Blanc Summits 1 August
Aosta Valley Italy Summits 8 August
Tour of the Grand Muveran 8 August
Austria Otztal Alps 15 August
Tour of the Matterhorn 29 August
Email me for more details!

Snowshoeing for everyone!

It's been a month of mixed weather so far - very cold, lots of snowfall and pretty windy. But in between times we've also had some great sunny days and even during the bad weather we have been able to find good conditions by switching between countries - being based on the alpine frontier we have the choice of slipping into Switzerland or across into Italy if the weather is dodgy here in France.

The fresh snow allowed us to perfect the Snowshoe Roll and other similarly upside down techniques, most of which seemed to involve digging.

We've had some great walks far from the crowded ski pistes. This last week there were holidaymakers from Britain, Swizerland, and two thirds of France, but the lift-free mountains were also crowd-free - most days we don't even get to say one "Bonjour".

There is amazing snow-cover throughout the Alps region - unusually so, since most years it seems if one side of the Alps has lots of snow, conditions are leaner on the other. But not this year. And more is forecast, as soon as Sunday.

Over in Italy I have been accompanied several times up my favourite peak by a local village dog who not only loyally stays with us despite the temptation of faster skiing groups, but also entertains us with his antics in the snow - we could not ask for a more energetic and joyful companion.

And so the winter continues. These last few sunny days could lead us to believe that spring is coming but don't be fooled - it's only mid February - there another two months of snowfall yet. But the days are getting longer, the sun stays out later and there are SO MANY SLOPES TO RUN DOWN!!!

An amazing week!

A week ago the forecast was "iffy", the weather turned cloudy Sunday evening and the next few days, whilst not looking bad, did not look really great.

How wrong that forecast was! It went from good to better to amazing! The snow was generally great for snowshoeing (although pretty blown for skiing above tree-line) and the weather cleared to perfect by Tuesday - the clarity of the views was exceptional.

This was a week where we were able to do everything we set off to do and by the end of the week we'd run out of superlatives to describe the conditions. We did classic snowshoe summits in France Switzerland and Italy and also had a wonderful two days at the Grand St Bernard Hospice where there were only 6 other people staying. It must be said that the snow there was blown to bits and I was grateful not to be skiing. This meant that there were very few skiers around, but snowshoes will plough through anything and plough they did.

The weather has now changed and tonight they are forecasting 70cms of snow over in Courmayeur and 40cms in Turin! We are just hoping all this will stabilise for next week in the Aosta Valley. Meanwhile for this week we have a mixed forecast but already today was okay in the woods with fresh snow. And over here on the north side of the massif we are somewhat protected by the Föhn so let's hope for a week half as good as last week, which would be just fine.

Fresh snowfall after weeks of sunshine!

It's been an amazing few weeks - day after day of sunshine - very cold around Christmas and New Year but the days are getting slightly longer and it has definitely been warmer lately.

We still have plenty of snow for snowshoeing and off piste skiing and conditions have generally been very stable.

But a top-up won't do any harm and that's what's happening today - light snow at the moment, but forecast for more or less the whole week with hopefully some sunny interludes from time to time.

So the up-coming Trekking in the Alps Snowshoeing trips should be good. There are still a few places left for trips in early February and March - notably a 4 day trip meeting 17 March and a 6 day trip 28 March.

The skiing has been really good too. I imagine the pistes are getting a touch icy but off-piste there are still places to go with lots of untracked slopes. And now is also the start of the heli-ski season.

The ski de fond pistes in the valleys are generally excellent, due to the cold January temps and the hefty snowfalls of December.

So we'll let this latest snowfall settle then get out there and lay down some tracks!

Fantastic conditions!

Day after day of fresh snowfall has given us the best December conditions in many years. There is snow right down in the low valleys at 400m and so you can imagine how good the conditioons are here up at 1300m.

Not without risk though - we have an avalanche risk of 3 or 4 on a scale of 5 and the latest layer of fresh snow has fallen on either wind-blown snow or wet heavy snow from a warm wind which blew last Sunday. But the forecast is good for the fore-seeable future it seems, so the snowpack will stabilise quickly.

Then it's just a question of getting those tracks in before all the holiday-makers who will arrive towards the end of next week.