Happy Boxing Day

 Powder snow, freezing temps, sunshine and no one around...

Early winter skills: how to escape snow-bound UK

Heavy snow across the UK and Europe didn't stop our first Mountain Tracks group arriving for their Early Winter Skills course. Great snow and excellent guiding and instruction from Olly, Claire and Roddy gave everyone a taste for skiing the deep stuff including a run down to the dam and down the Chamois back to our chalet. A great start to the season... Thanks to Delia for the photos.

photo: Delia Cox

photo: Delia Cox

My first snow...

It was a beautiful day today so we took a walk through Zinal and found that the young calves had been let out to play and get their first taste of snow.

A wintery scene...

More snow has fallen this week and in between the storms we've had some beautiful blue sky days. Things are looking good... especially as more is forecast for next week.

It has begun...

Blue sky and beautiful snow - what a way to start the season. Zinal opened on Saturday with such good conditions it seemed rude not to make a few turns.

Not all the runs are open, of course, but there's skiing between 2900m and 2200m. Weekdays from mid-November to 18th December it's for race teams only. Thanks to the hard work of the director of the lift company, Pascal, major international teams flock in to train and compete. We've got the Bulgarians - Dobre doshal! - staying with us this week. It's a good chance for them to practice their English as well as their GS-turns...

Hazy days of autumn

We've had a week of wonderful warm sunny days, the leaves have started to turn and the slopes are a mix of reds, yellows and golds. The weather is perfect for walking and yesterday we went round to the Moiry dam. As we sat having our picnic it was hard to imagine that within a month these slopes will be white and that we will be skiing in Zinal just the other side of the hill...

Col de Milon

One of our favourite walks is up to the Cabane d'Arpitetta (2786m). The refuge is in a side valley at the bottom of the Weisshorn and is dwarfed by this 4500m peak. It's encircled by glaciers that spill down on every side adding to the scale of things. The refuge makes a great destination in itself and has a wonderful terrace for lunch with a view. Today the weather was really good so we decided to carry on up and across the Col de Milon (2990m) into the Tracuit valley.

It's a bit of a scramble and the north facing side is slippery (it's snow-bound for much of the summer) so we were grateful for the chains, but the views are stunning; it makes a wonderful - though long - round-walk from Zinal.