Apart from some rock climbing on Saturday this is the first time Julie and I have managed to get out together since back in June and probably only about the third time this summer, it’s the first time I’ve been out for myself since July as well. But, it’s a great time, the autumn colours are coming out and the mountain’s empty, the cows have been moved down and a lot of the migratory birds are leaving and tourists are long gone.

There’s a nice path up from the nearby village of Chandolin, it rises about 500m but the angle’s perfect and we’re comfortably up at the Tsape restaurant in an hour for a local specialty, an “Assiette Valaisanne” which is a selection of dried and smoked local meats with local cheese.

Some super colours, these are mostly colonisation plants, that’s things that move into poor ground and poor soil first. the really obvious one is Rosebay Willowherb that’s gone over, it’s also known as fireweed which is apt this time of year.

It’s the time of year for berries, at this height on this type of ground we’re seeing bilberries, juniper and these cowberries, they’re a bit bitter raw but they stew well and they’re pretty good with meats like roast venison. They (cowberries) are Vaccinium vitis-idaea known by other names like mountain bilberry or mountain cranberry, these berries are pretty much all part of the same family. The cowberry is pretty similar to the bearberry, the difference that you can see in this photo is the remnants of the sepals around the tip of the fruit. They (cowberries) are edible on the hill but you need to be sure what you’re looking at, most red berries are bad for you and bilberries can be; like the related bog bilberry at lower altitudes which can carry a fungus which causes a nauseous intoxication.

Above left, a view into the valley we skied yesterday under the Orxival.  And right, a view into the valley from today.

By the time we were descending to the Illsee the light was a bit poor and the snow a bit marginal but it was a good pitch and a pleasant climb out again. All the nicer as I’d not toured on my Kilowatts before and not tried the old skins on them, happily the old skins fit a treat and I don’t need to buy any more.

Visibility was poor at times, just passing the observatory I sent an SMS to Julie saying we’d be on the webcam but of course it wasn’t possible to see much in the mist. We walked a way along the route they have Saint Luc for star gazers, along with the observatory there’s a walk with models of planets. I’m not really sure what the one above is though.

The “normal” route passes the Hotel Weisshorn but we’d decided to head to Bella Vouarda to add a little interest, until we got to the track we’d not really committed to the route as we’d wanted to see how much snow was still on the ground, it’s pretty early in the season to be up above 2500m and there’s still some snow around. It looked OK so we started to head up. Some of the streams were a bit swollen though, above right you can see one of the bridges is submerged.

Higher up we cross the snow line and it gets a bit interesting, it’s néve which has melted and frozen again a few times. It’s varying between something fairly firm and in other places we’re sinking to our knees or deeper. The plan is to make the col from where we think the snow is going to be a lot easier, the idea is that we’re on a north facing slope and it’s still holding snow, after the col we’re going to descend on a southerly aspect and the snow should be melted and a lot thinner. The slopes themselves though are stable and there’s no risk of a slide here.

After the col we drop to Alpage Nava and meet this rather fantastic dog, he’s not such a good guard dog though, he was asleep as we walked up and took a few minutes to wake up and notice us. I’m not sure the photo’ does him justice, he was really large with massive paws and looked pretty young so maybe not even full size.

The traverse is pretty good, there’s great views down the valley and it’s a fantastic line. Along the way we see some really extreme damage from avalanches, trees torn up and uprooted, rock slides and vegetation stripped, a few weeks ago this would have been a bad place to be. The rain forecast finally arrived so we had to take a pause to put on waterproofs but it didn’t last and we were soon stowing them away.

All in all, a great route, our variant over the col adds some time particular in the deep snow we had today but it’s worthwhile I think.

http://snowslider.net/anniviers-ski-bus/

It’s also a menu item along the top of this page along with some information about local avalanche conditions and snow pack stability, this is is just information published by SLF but I’ve collected it in one place. The snow pack stability image links back to the SLF site and from there you can click on the individual icons and see the detailed analysis worksheet which is pretty interesting.

You can also download a copy as a PDF file here : Ski Bus 2008

Grimentz

• Télécabine
• Tapis roulant
• Téléski Ecole
• Téléski Marenda
• Télésiège des Grands-Plans
• Télésiège de la Tsarva

Saint-Luc / Chandolin

• Télésiège du Tsapé
• Téléski des Etables

Zinal

• Téléphérique
• Télésiège du Chiesso
• Télésiège de la Corne
• Mini
• Tapis roulant
• Téléski de la Remointze

Vercorin (from 15/16 Dec)

• Télécabine Vercorin-Crêt-du-Midi
• Téléski du Crêt
• Téléski des Chardons

This is all subject to conditions of course and as it’s only partial opening lift tickets are reduced by 35-50%. Zinal will open weekdays as well now although it’ll be interesting to see how much demand there is for that so early.

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This is the first time I’ve been up the Bella Tolla this season, it’s been closed the last few times I’ve been over to Saint Luc. It’s a shade over 3000m at the top and the snow is great.

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As usual it was pretty quiet over at Saint Luc, even more so as it’s very low season at the moment. It’s great spring skiing on nearly empty slopes.

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The views from the top of the Bella Tolla are excellent of course.

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From the top of the Bella Tolla we skied down the Prilet in good conditions for an excellent lunch at the restaurant there then back on the bus to the main ski area.

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Above is a demonstration of how the camera often fails to represent the angle of a slope, the shot on the left is taken looking down the slope while the right is looking across at the same slope. It was great skiing as well, good snow and a nice gradient.

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It turned into a slightly late start after we arrived at St Luc and I realised I’d forgotten the liners for my boots and had to go back to Zinal to get them. The weather’s not improved much for a few days, today it was cold and very windy with a number of lifts closed.

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An interesting special at a very windswept Cabane Bella Tolla. After lunch we took a run down the itinerary into St Luc which was pretty good although slightly heavy in places.

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The itinerary was slightly lacking in cover towards the bottom, but back at the top the wind was still throwing snow around.

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After skiing back down to the Foret drag we skied a little in Chandolin. The Foret was an interesting ride though, the drifts had left the top like a skier cross course and it was a bit touch and go if we all actually made it to the top.

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A day over St Luc & Chandolin, the sunny slopes are always a nice place to spend a Sunday. The view above is over the Chandolin part of the domain.

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The Pas-de-Boeuf teleski and Bandit & Andy pause on the Prilet haut piste.

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Looking at Grimentz on the left and towards the Illhorn on the left.

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Unlike yesterday, the photograph on the left is rather steeper than it looks, it’s an itinerary on the Chandolin side dropping of the ridge from the first photograph.

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That’s actually a stitched photograph and quickly stitched at that so the joins are visible. You’re always conscious in the Val d’Anniviers that you’re in amongst some pretty big mountains but from the St Luc you can really see how many 4000m peaks there are.

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The area was typically deserted, even over Christmas it wasn’t busy and today much quieter. There’s only a couple of chair lifts and some really long drags so I think it would really put off the masses. It’s probably just as well as although there’s some fantastic red runs they’re a little more demanding than you might find in other places and they’re pretty narrow so the usual endless traverses or standing stationary on awkward sections would be pretty awful.

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On the right photograph you can see Crans Montana, it looks like the covers’s improved from a couple of weeks ago but from here it doesn’t look to me that the snow reaches the villages. Crans is above Sierre which is reckoned to be the sunniest place in Switzerland, hence the vineyards, so without plenty of fresh snow it can be a little poor.