The end of the summer....?

It's been a great summer season here - warm all the time, even in July when there were a fair number of evening storms. We have hardly walked in the rain at all and August has seen wall to wall blue skies almost every day. How good is that? For hiking on non-glaciated terrain the conditions have been perfect; the same is true for cragging - everything has been really dry and the warm temps made climbing at altitude really pleasant.

Sadly there is a downside - the high mountains are suffering - heavy rockfall on many faces, grey, icy and melting glaciers, and lots of open crevasses.

Care must be taken when choosing high summits and climbs - anything remotely prone to rockfall should be avoided and beware hard grey ice on many slopes.

My treks have been great fun, especially the ones far from the crowds. Last week I did something I called Not the Tour of Mont Blanc with a brilliant team and we enjoyed near solitude on many days, even though we were really very near the famous TMB trek.

On this subject, last weekend saw the Mont Blanc Ultra Trail around the whole Mont Blanc massif. Having promised family and friends that I would not do this again, having succeeded on it twice, I was satisfied to watch from a distance and to enjoy the fantastic ambience that this race now generates in Chamonix. For the 3rd year running conditions for the race were perfect.

Now the season is drawing to a close and we'll all be glad to take a break for a while.

I have provisional programmes for my snowshoeing and summer treks and holidays and these can be found on my website http://www.trekkinginthealps.com/

Ill be back with alpine news in a month or so!

A very busy month!

It's been a month of non-stop trekking, so lots to report. After a great Tour of Mont Blanc at the end of June and my first Mont Blanc Summits week early July, reported in my last post, we have since had the Tour of the Matterhorn and Tour of Monte Rosa treks, both of which took us into remote areas of the Italian Alps where we found unusually snowy slopes for this time of year. Late snow in this region has not melted on many shady slopes.

This actually made some ascents easier, as normally tortuous scree slopes were covered with a smooth layer of snow. Other slopes, however, required caution and I was glad to have my usual small groups of people - this means I can easily look after everyone and ensure security. Bigger groups that we met were having problems and some even had to abandon the treks.

Whilst weather conditions were far from stable during these two weeks, and I frequently put my waterproof sac cover over my backpack as a dry weather insurance method, we did not once walk in rain. The Tour of Monte Rosa group were lucky to have good condtions for their ascent of the Breithorn summit above Zermatt.

These treks were followed by a wonderful trek from Zinal to Zermatt with a family group of parents, two young girls, a sheep and a cat (not all actually living creatures you understand!). All performed brilliantly and "kicked ass" on several occasions!

We finished with a hike up to the base of the Matterhorn for some and an ascent of the Allalinhorn for others.

The flowers have been fantastic this summer, and we've also had some great wildlife spotting, althought the marmots seem to be a bit scarce - maybe the long winter proved too hard in some places.

Finally this last week saw my second Mont Blanc Summits week for this summer. These weeks feature 3 two day expeditions, one in France, one Switzerland and one in Italy. After a cloudy first two days, we had perfect condtions and did 3 non-glaciated trekking summits in the last 3 days, all with full 360° views of the neighbouring glaciated summits - Monte Blanc, the Matterhorn, Monte rosa, the Gran Paradiso.... These weeks are really fun beacuse we are not on a specific trek and so we tend to go to places where there are no other people. We did meet a large number of Italians on Monte Zerbion as it has a huge Madonna on top, but they had all come up by an easier route so most of our day we were alone. We also enjoy very varied accommodation - refuge nights are interpersed with nights in luxurious accommodation - notably a vineyard in Italy.

So now some days off will allow me to plan the programme for 2010 - firstly the winter snowshoeing and then the summer treks.

The link for the 2010 snowshoeing programme will be on my blog in just a few days.

Mixed weather but great hiking

Last week saw me hiking with a very mixed nationality group of women - Swiss, American, Belgian and Australian. We did the Tour of Mont Blanc, heading off backwards (clockwise) so as to avoid being on the same trail as the Chamonix Marathon which was taking place that day.

Really hot conditions lasted the whole week and whilst storms threatened every day we were lucky until the afternoon of the very last day and that only after we'd successfully descended the dreaded ladders at Les Cheserys - with some acrobatics along the way!

This week the weather has been very variable and we've had some wet and cold conditions. A week of local walking, taking in lots of non-glaciated summits, has taken us from the Mont Blanc region, to the Aravis, the Emosson dam and today over to the Italian Val Ferret where clear and cold condiitons this morning gave us perfect views of the whole of the Mont Blanc massif - and a great ascent of the Tête entre Deux Sauts.

The Tour of the Matterhorn followed by the Tour of Monte Rosa are next on the programme - hoping for lots of sunshine.

Wonderful warm hiking in Mallorca!

Well they told us it would be too hot to hike in Mallorca in June - in fact I did wonder myself, but mid-June was the only date the group could all manage. And it turned out so much better than expected.

Not that it wasn't hot - we're talking low 30°s most of the time - but up in the hills it was really pleasant. How great to be able to have a week's walking and not to have to even think about the weather, never to need to put on long sleeves, let alone rain gear, or to search out a picnic spot out of the wind!

Of course, there was a bit of sweating going on, but that's generally a good thing and most normal people sweat hiking uphill anyway.

A further unexpected advantage of going to Mallorca at this time of year is that the majority of holiday-makers are not walkers and so we rarely met a soul on the trail. Just great. We were treated to lovely views and the daily mid-day fly-over of a huge group of about 20 black vultures when we were in the main mountains of the Sierra Tramuntana.

So now back to the Alps where it feels a touch chilly but allegedly things are going to warm up during the week. I hope so - my TMB trek starts next Sunday.

Dream Team in Mallorca!

Last week's hiking holiday in Mallorca could not have gone better, partly due to the wonderful walks, scenery and weather, but far more due to the group -"Grupo Sharp" as we were endearingly referred to in the hotels!

I felt like the 19 years of Trekking in the Alps was summed up in this group of people who had all already trekked with me over the years, but some of whom I had not seen for a long time. We were a great mix of nationalities too - British, Italian and American - and I am certain new friendships were forged.

Everyone got on well, and we were most fortunate to have 2 singers with us who regaled us with great trail songs whilst we were hiking.

Thanks folks for being such fun.

Now it's time to look forward to the summer treks. I have places free on the Tour of the Matterhorn, Tour of Monte Rosa, and two Mont Blanc Summits weeks, which will be great fun weeks doing non-glaciated peaks in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.

And then we'll start to think about next winter - but for the moment let's enjoy the spring flowers!

The end of the winter - next step, Mallorca

Over the last week the snow has melted astonishingly fast - but only in the valleys. The is a still a huge amount of snow above 1500m and the skiing and snowshoeing will be good for weeks yet. In fact just yesterday we had heavy snow during the afternoon and the forests are snow-covered again today.

The last few days saw us out on snowshoes in Italy at the Rifugio Bonatti where Skip the lab joined us for a hike opposite the Grandes Jorasses.

But it's time to change the snowshoes and skis for walking shoes and climbing boots. The crags in the valley are generally dry and the climbing season is getting going. The trails are emerging from the snow - but be warned, there will be névé on trails above 2000m well into the early summer I think.

So to get good hiking we need to head south - Mallorca in this case - for a week of summit-bagging amongst the splendid limestone scenery of the Sierra Tramuntana. If it's anything like last year we are in for a blast!

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!