It’s well into spring touring time so today was a good time to take a trip. The objective was a journey through the val d’Anniviers into the vallon de Rechy and onto the ski station of Nax in the val d’Hérens. Neither David nor I had been to Nax before but we’ve both skied in the vallon de Rechy many times. We took a route up through Zinal skiing down to Grimentz and then taking the lifts up to near the Becs de Bosson and climbing over the col to ski into the Rechy.

It’s not bad skiing in the Rechy, it’s not particularly steep but the snow is reliable and you only ever see a handful of other people touring as well. It’s been a while since the last snow so you see a few tracks around but it’s not tracked out by any means.

Once we’ve got to the lowest point we’re going to hit we fix skins again and climb out up Mont Noble. Mont Noble is a small peak and it’s not a huge climb so we’re quickly up and looking over ski area into Nax. It turns out Nax has quite a few cruisey runs which are fun before a spot of lunch at a great little buvette and then a ski down through the forest on tracks to get to the village of Nax which is a little way below the ski area. From there it’s a bus to Sion, a train to Sierre and another bus back to Zinal.

…. and for the quip “Mont Noble …. not as grand as it sounds…” acknowledgments to David who made the remark as we finished the climb… it made me smile anyway….

There’s not been a huge amount of fresh snow in Zinal for little while so it’s all pretty tracked but there’s still some good skiing as always. I’d met up with David and we skied in the freeride area a little before heading to Grimentz via a nice couloir pitch. Over in Grimentz the steeper north facing couloirs were also skiing pretty well so we tried some of them before skiing down into St-Jean taking the bus back to Zinal via Grimentz.

Meeting David, another Zinal regular, we decided to ski over to Grimentz and found some decent snow on the way down with some fun skiing right up on the barrage wall.

After lunch we skied around Grimentz for a while before skiing off the back of the Orxival to St Jean which was quite excellent at the top where the sun hadn’t transformed the snow.

There seemed to be a few people around looking a bit serious with loads of kit so it was amusing to see them heading into the mist and cloud first think while I opted for lightly wooded slopes which I had mostly to myself.

According to the sign, it’s down there , but I knew that. The only problem looping around here is I’ve got to grab the telecabine back up and it’s pain as I’m (unusually) wearing powder traces which I have to keep taking on and off.

So, down there, back to village and back up for another go.

After a lunch stop the weather picked up a bit and I headed for some higher slopes for a while.

But the lure of the forest proved too much and I’m back there for the last few runs finishing on a line I’d not skied before but timing the 20 minute hike back to the village perfectly to grab the bus back to Zinal.

But, today they’re on the way home so it’s all much more relaxed. We rode up the lift to Zinal and did a couple of runs before skiing over to Grimentz for lunch followed by a ski down into St-Jean and back on the bus. The bus timetable’s not quite working, it was full to bursting from Grimentz, they maybe should run an extra bus on weekends. I was also struck by how little help this proposed new lift between Zinal and Grimentz would be, you would need to leave Grimentz early to ride up to Zinal to either ski down or ride the gondola so you’re better of with the bus at 1630 or 1710 for a full afternoon skiing.

I was over in Grimentz for the first time this season, they were open last weekend but I was in Zinal enjoying our amazing powder.

Conditions over at Grimentz were pretty good but I’d have to say there was slightly less snow than we had in Zinal last weekend. Needless to say my new skis acted as magnets for barely covered rocks and one of the first pitches skis I ground over some rocks, fortunately the bindings set-up was perfect and they released rather then me dragging them over rocks although I got to drag my knee over the rock instead.

The skis? No doubt I’ll mention them more later but they’re not bad, off-piste they’re great, really snappy in turning, Black Diamond marketing puns they have “electric reflexes” which isn’t so over the top, they do turn more rapidly than my Voodoos or the Endorphin/Kilowatt works well. On piste, I’m not wild about them so far, I found them a handful although I may retune the edges and see if that works, normally I don’t detune the tails but it might work on these.

After we skinned up the col above the ski area near the Becs de Bosson we skied into the Lona area on spring snow, pretty much the first spring snow I’ve skied on all season really. Another climb out to the Diablon ridge and we were above the Alpage valley looking at untracked snow, in fact, we were the first and only people in the Lona and had the area to ourselves. From here is a pleasent, albeit easy, ski down to the barrage at Moriy and the usual run out along the summer road although the snow’s a little sticky in the afternoon and we’re pushing in a couple of places.