All or nothing

Storms hit Switzerland and much of Europe at the beginning of the month.

We went over to St Bernard area to explore some of the little know resorts of La Fouly, Vicheres and Champex Lac, and found some interesting stuff, both resorts and snow. Over there the wind had reached speeds of 270km/per hour. Too strong to form any cornices, it left the tops of the mountains scoured back to rock in places, the snow having been shifted and dropped several meters along where it lay up to 4m deep.

Skiing through the trees was interesting too with the ground littered with large branches and whole trees. Still we found some wonderful stuff - a beautiful and quiet area away from the crowds of Verbier.

Back in Zinal, the tops of the mountains are also back to the rock in places, the first coulour on the Chamois is a boulder field and the top 20m down to the dam is exposed rock and grass. The snow has gone somewhere, the trick is to find out where and access how loaded it is...

Snow shoeing by moon light

After all the snow storms, last night was still and clear - perfect for a snowshoe trip by the light of the full moon. We just went up into the forest behind Mottec, and saw fresh snow hare and fox tracks, everything was beautifully quiet and the snow sparkled just like the stars.

Coming back into the village everything looked magical and certainly worthy of a picture or two.

Snow has fallen snow on snow....

After one of the driest autumn in the Alps for (some say) 150 years, the weather finally turned and from the 14th December we've had more snow than we could at times cope with. So much fell on the 16th that they closed the road for 1.5 days as a precaution against avalanche. Things have settled down now and since Christmas we've had more snow but some good skiing too in deep deep powder.

Once dug out, our new outdoor fireplace has made a great venue for some pre dinner vin chaud.

 

You can get an idea of the depth of snow from the garden room's roof.

 

From ice to Nice

photo by: Will Herrington

It's only 2 weeks since the previous post and how the landscape has changed. The resorts are open at weekends and the international race teams are being relocated from other venues and are flooding in from all over Europe to race in Zinal. Us mortals benifit tremendously from all the hard work the lift company has put in and we've been making turns before most. Now the real snow has arrived and we can venture off piste too. This is from Sunday which was before the recent falls. More forcaste for the rest of the week.

Walking on water

We decided to make the most the beautiful weather, which continues dry and cold. We opted not to ski today and instead walked up to the Lac d'Arpitetta which was frozen solid - the ice about 5" deep.

Meanwhile across the valley the team at the Zinal lift company have been working miracles making water into snow up on the hill so that Zinal opened this weekend to the public making it possible to ski from 2896m down to 2195m.

Yellow, snow

A cold and wet front came through at the end of last week - a good excuse for a fire. But on Sunday we woke to a stunning day - fresh snow and beautiful autumn colours. It was calm and warm down here but up high you could see the strong winds blowing off the powder snow.

Pockets full of gold

The Indian summer that started about 4 weeks ago continues, if anything the days seem even warmer now. As of last Monday (26th September) the beautiful colours of autumn are starting to appear - the birch and larch are turning golden and the mountain ash red. To add to the autumnal feel the deer are beginning to rut and their belowing calls can be heard every evening.