Plan “A” just didn’t work out, that was to go to the Cabane des Dix via the Pas des Chèvres which is something I’d wanted to do for a while. High winds made that pretty impractical so a plan was hatched to go into the Aiguille Rouges d’Arolla area towards the Col des Ignes and descend to the hamlet of La Gouille and get a bus back to Arolla. Even then it was pretty fierce in the wind in places and fairly cold.

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I was especially interested in doing this route as from the Pointe du Tsaté you get views into the Val de Moiry, in fact it’s the next peak to the Sasseniere and I’ve hiked and skied in Val de Moiry many times from Zinal and Grimentz. The day started in an interesting way, we took the bus to Les Haudères and another to La Forclaz, on the second bus we’d expected to get off the bus at the drag lift and ride the first 500m up. But, the lift wasn’t running as we got there so the bus driver got on his phone and called the lift guy up who arrived in a couple of minutes and turned the lift on for us. As the last person got off the lift it stopped and we had the place to ourselves, in fact, I’m not even sure the station was really operating, there was no sign of piste preparation at all.
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With good weather much improved on the previous day we set out from near Pralovin to climb Palanche de la Cretta which is 2926m and around 1200m climb from the bottom.

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The weather didn’t look too good leaving the hotel this morning but we headed out and skinned up the glacier anyway and were later rewarded with some nice views in breaks in the clouds and some pretty excellent pitches skiing in good powder from the point we’d climbed up to.

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