SnowSlider – Blogging From the mountains by ise

I did some nordic skiing over here a few weeks and it was obvious that the snowshoeing would be pretty good so when I needed somewhere to go today this seemed an obvious idea. We set off using one of the winter paths but this meandered a bit too much so we took a direct route in the forest to get to the Bison Ranch. We’d planned to get some lunch here which was fine but the menu was a bit limited. soup or bison sausage only, fortunately both turned out to be great with some vin-chaud and home made bread.

It’s holiday time in mainstream locations but places like Nods are pretty much untouched by holiday traffic so we were the only people we saw on snowshoes all day with the exception of a couple who turned up at the restaurant at the same time.

Nods is satellite of the Prés d’Orvin nordic ski area, it’s closer to the house than Prés d’Orvin by around 15 minutes or so and it’s about a 40 minute ski into Prés d’Orvin from Nods on a classic track.

I was the only the person there when I arrived and not having been to Nods before I couldn’t immediately locate the start of the loipe, it turned out to be just near the tree on the rear and left of my car above. Once I’d skied into Prés d’Orvin I found it was a lot more busy with a couple of dozen cars there and a few people on the loipes. I did a quick short loipe here and then skied the 6km back to Nods.

On the way back one of the local farmers had let some cattle out for air and, I presume, a chance to clear out the sheds. They look to have great coats for the weather