New Zinal chalet

Hot off the press: the beautiful 8 bed Chalet Yayla in Zinal, recently built by friends of ours, is being made available to rent, self-catered. Here are a few pictures, with more to come soon on www.skizinal.com

For now if you're interested in renting it, just contact us: contact@skizinal.com

Happy new year

When full moon coincides with new year's eve in Zinal, the place to be is on the 'plat', the flood plain above the village, with the moonlight reflected off the mountains making it bright enough to see colours by. Sledging, hot punch, toasted marshmallows and a roaring fire followed by Chinese lanterns drifting skywards against a backdrop of fireworks over the village.

Our lovely Christmas guests cunningly arranged a very early start home today, allowing us to hit the first lift in Zinal. Lots of great snow and a chance to try the Scott Stunt skis which are of approximately waterski dimensions and go like the clappers. Very nice but I think I'm more of a Pure-ist (see below) for anything other than super-deep untracked snow. Mind you, it's just started snowing again, so who knows...

Fat Christmas

Finally getting a chance to work my way through the new Scott skis in our rack since our Christmas guests are not real freeride material:

Crusairs - as light as you could hope for and incredibly helpful in dodgy snow, even breakable crust; they turn for themselves which takes a bit of getting used to.
Punishers - match my cold weather outfit really well (an orange theme) and they go very nicely, though I'm not really a twin-tip sort of person, generally aiming not to go backwards or to get airbourne without very good reason.
Pures - four hours hooning round the mountain in shin-deep fresh snow and heavy chop on the way down to Zinal (there's more snow than average above about 2000m here but recent warm temps have left it less good down below) was more fun than should be allowed; a much easier ride than expected, and neutral balance that never put me in the back seat. Guests will have to be very persuasive to make me hand over these ones. But if I'm going to ride them all day, I'll need to get some bigger thigh muscles from somewhere.

It snowed overnight and like crazy today - complete whiteout - so it could be perfect super-deep conditions to try the Stunts tomorrow. Quite excited? Just a bit.

Winter Skills: how to stay warm and have fun

Chilly temperatures (down to -20C) made skiing more of a challenge than usual this week. Boot-fitters always stress how important it is to have feedback from your feet when skiing, and for that it's important you have all your toes a) still attached and b) not frozen solid. On the plus side, the cold preserved the powder, giving our Mountain Tracks ski group and instructor Claire Summers plenty of fresh tracks all week despite no significant fresh snow for 10 days. A bit of skinning provided the perfect warm-up once in a while, as well as access to the best stuff, though we steered clear - on local advice - of the tempting descent to the dam; the way out would have been a quick way to wreck everyone's shiny new skis.

If I can work out how to post a video, I'll put up one of Kathy's acrobatic extravaganzas next.

In the thick of it

 

What a great way to start the week. It's been snowing since some time last night and there's more promised over the next few days. Time to find some fat skis...

How many skis can you ski at once?

Christmas came early at Chalet Edelweiss: a car full of Scott goodies rolled up first thing this morning. Not just  Herve, Scott's ski designer, and Steve, Scott UK's general manager but a range of freeride skis as well as brand new ski outfits for us both. Penny's will without doubt convince female clients they should check out Scott's great clothing range. Mine will ensure clients don't lose me in a crowd, or in a snowstorm, unless they want to.
After yesterday's snowfall, trying out the new kit was even more fun than expected - I would never have guessed we'd be skiing powder today from the Corne de Sorebois. And with just racers up there, sticking to their gates, we had it all to ourselves, doing laps from the top chair. Another tough day at the office for the Scott guys and a taste of the season to come for us. Heaven.