SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

We got back from our Wild High Level Route on Friday afternoon (photo’s to follow) and it was pretty wild weather travelling from Sierre back to Zinal on the bus, the bus itself was just fine but a number of tourists had failed to make it up the valley and were blocking the road while they tried to fit chains.

So on Saturday we got up for the first lift hoping for a powder day, what we actually got was snow so deep it was actually hard to ski in places. But, it was a good day, clear skies for a time and although the skiing was a little difficult it was good. Sunday over at Grimentz was improved, the cold temperatures possibly drying out the snow a little and we got some great skiing around the area. Avalanche risk is running at 3 and on the high side so bigger off-piste excursions were not practical.

Another light snow fall over night and some more good ski conditions, towards the mid afternoon he snow did start to get heavier but was still pretty good. Skiing with Neil (above), Claire and Scott and then later joined by David we skied around most of the usual areas, we’d planned to ski to Grimentz but the avalanche risk was really too high and the afternoon sun onto the snow really made our route look too risky so we stayed around the Zinal area. This will actually be the last day we’re skiing here until Easter Saturday, Claire, Neil and I head out for a week long ski tour starting tomorrow.

We had a pretty good snowfall last night so we rode the first lift this morning to enjoy the new snow. Conditions were really quite excellent, although the light was slightly poor at first it quickly improved and we got some great skiing. This is a couple of shots of Neil and Scot riding some powder this afternoon, we actually made this descent a few times as it was so good.

Towards the end of last week the forecasts started to indicate some major snowfall, there’s been a couple of small falls and some pretty good skiing but today was the first day we really started to see the amounts of snow that had been forecast. As I write this now it’s started to snow heavily again here at village level, the forecast suggests this will continue on and off for some days.

I was actually the first person on the slopes this morning, I rode the early lift at 0830 with two other people, neither of whom actually went onto the slopes so for 20 or 30 minutes I was the only person on the mountain.. Since it had snowed after they’d prepared the runs I had some fun tracking those for a while and then went for a coffee when the crowds arrived. One of the next lifts brought Neil, Claire and snowboarder friend of theirs and we headed out to ski the fresh powder. It’s a quiet week and we pretty much had the off-piste to ourselves.


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