After not posting any photo’s for ages, here’s two days one after another! Obviously slightly busier today with the main holiday season kicking in so there was a small queue for the lift, in fact the new, increased capacity car looks like it’s copying reasonably well all things considered. But, I’d decided to skin up anyway, I’ve not skinned up to the top for ages so today was a good day for some exercise.
The trouble was, after doing a lot of nordic skiing recently, my skis felt like they weighed a ton, on any moderate gradient nordic skis are just so much better so it felt a bit like hard work until I got warmed up and into a groove.
But, a nice day which is what I took a couple more photo’s.

A few shots around Zinal as I’ve not posted many for ages, in part because I’ve been doing some other things elsewhere but also because I’ve not taken any. I actually left without my camera this morning but turned round to get it as an afterthought.

We were noticing it getting busier during the day, not sure if there’s a particular reason for that or it’s a sign that people are arriving for the holidays and grabbling a few extra hours on the slopes.

There’s always a series of slides along that ridge although I  think these were triggered by the piste security guys, it’s an obviously unsafe slope although the angle may not be too clear from the photo’. It’s likely it’ll snow again and we’ll see people skiing it regardless though, I’ve actually watched one person trigger a slide on it and they were lucky enough to ski out. His mates were stood underneath and we’re lucky not be hit by the debris.

And finally, looking like a long way down to Zinal. This can be a gem after fresh snow but the moguls have got to a size where the snow can’t fill them in, nevertheless it was about the best I’ve skied it this season.

On of the great things about snowshoeing, and living somewhere with a bit of snow, is you can quickly find yourself away from the beaten track. These pictures are just from a short tour around the forest behind the chalet. There’s no marked trails so you can wander through the forest as you want.

Apparently the abundance of rowan berries we seem to have this year is a good omen for a snowy and cold winter. So far it’s more in line with long range forecasts though, it’s not bad but we’ve seen temperatures ranging from -20′c to +4′c or higher.

The snow’s still pretty good although down here it’s below 2000m and it’s got a bit saturated by rain and melting, without the snowshoes it would be pretty heavy going.

There’s a via ferrata a couple of km down the road at the Moiry Barrage, I’ve not been over that way this summer although it’s a popular ski spot in the winter with a few lines crossing the barrage itself.

Read the rest of this entry »