(View from the top of Flaine towards Mt Blanc)

We went over to our place in Morillon on Friday evening, as is now usual it seemed a bit busy in the station. But, Saturday is always a good day to ski and people were leaving as we got up in the morning.The day started really well, it was a little warm maybe, but, that meant we were able to eat our breakfast outside on the terrace of the local bakery which was a great start for the day.

We’d arranged to meet a couple of people from SnowHeads over at Les Moillets so we did a couple of runs and headed that way. Julie pointed out it might have been unfortunate if the people turned to be anyone I’d been rude about from the lifts Luckily this turned out not be true ….

For me, we had a great day, it’s a little warm even given it’s late March but it’s nice to ski in the warm after some of the really cold temperatures we’ve had this season.

For some reason, after meeting Marc from SnowHeads, I suggested skiing the short off-piste section parallel to the Corbalanche lift, I really don’t know why I bother, it’s a south facing slope and only ever any good about 1 in 20 times I ski it. The last time I was there it was rutted ice and this time it was just heavy, my skis vanished below the surface and I hardly saw them until the bottom of the slope, most of which I spent in a wide stance stretching ligaments trying to force my skis where I wanted them to be. The other side of the valley with the north facing slope is always better and on the way back was quite pleasant.

We finished off down the Marvel run into Morillon Les Esserts, most visitors miss this gem, it’s a long green which curves down through the forest. It’s never steep but there’s always enough gradient to ski it without skating.

Zinal’s a great village at the end of the Val d’Anniviers and we spent most of Saturday meeting with a local architect to discuss our project.

Sunday we decided to ski at St-Luc/Chandolin which is one of the four distinct stations in the Val d’Anniviers. We parked near the funicular in St Luc, the funi’ takes you straight up into the St Luc ski area. From there we headed over to Chandolin and the Illhorn area finding a great little restaurant (above) for a drink.

The skiing’s terrific, the runs are really narrow in places and probably would not be to the taste of some skiers, but, we enjoyed them a lot. The snow currently is about perfect for piste conditions, it’s hard and maybe slightly icy but fast and fun.

The terrain is just incredible and there was a competition on, the Quicksilver First Track Freeride in fact on this slope:

It’s a popular areas for this, Grimentz was hosting a Freeday on Saturday which is part of the giantXtour series.

We finished off the day with a ride up to the high point which is the Bella Tola at 3027m which has some excellent skiing taking you back down to the funi’; all in all an excellent day with perfect spring conditions and just great scenery.

When I was round at Thun in the week it looked so nice down the valley towards the Jungfrau that I decided to take a visit there later in the week.I parked round at the Grund lift station in Grindelwald, it’s about the largest car park in the area and reasonably handy for the lift, and, unlike Stechelberg/Mürren, they don’t charge for parking. It’s been a fine spring day, temperatures have been hovering around freezing point and the sun’s been out with just a small amount of light cloud.

From Grund I took the train up to Kleine Scheidegg, this takes about 30 mins on top of the time to wait for it so it just takes an age. These trains are all very well for the tourists but they are slow and inconvenient for skiers in the winter. Up at Kleine Scheidegg it was just busy and I took a run down to the Wixi lift which had a queue on it as well. Along with the majority of people moving in a somewhat random manner I was beginning to regret coming at all.

Then I set off down to Wengen and the crowds disappeared and the day improved considerably, I did some sections of the Lauberhorn course but it was the first day on my skis so I wanted to get a feel for them before unwinding them to that sort of speed.

From Wengen I again took the train to Kleine Scheidegg and started to ski over in the Männlichen area, these are fast wide carving pistes and just the thing for my brand new Stöckli Laser SC’s, it’s tending to ice in place and the Lasers just eat it up leaving bemused bystanders wondering how you’re holding an edge when they’re sliding around.

The last run down I took was the Tshuggen back to Grund, by now it nearly 5pm and pistes were nearly empty so I could let the Lasers really start to fly on them.

I’ve decided to get some Stöckli skis, I’ve tried various models before and been really impressed with the production quality.

Just to be sure I took some 168’s again and found them just as good as I had previously.