A few shots around Zinal as I’ve not posted many for ages, in part because I’ve been doing some other things elsewhere but also because I’ve not taken any. I actually left without my camera this morning but turned round to get it as an afterthought.

We were noticing it getting busier during the day, not sure if there’s a particular reason for that or it’s a sign that people are arriving for the holidays and grabbling a few extra hours on the slopes.

There’s always a series of slides along that ridge although I  think these were triggered by the piste security guys, it’s an obviously unsafe slope although the angle may not be too clear from the photo’. It’s likely it’ll snow again and we’ll see people skiing it regardless though, I’ve actually watched one person trigger a slide on it and they were lucky enough to ski out. His mates were stood underneath and we’re lucky not be hit by the debris.

And finally, looking like a long way down to Zinal. This can be a gem after fresh snow but the moguls have got to a size where the snow can’t fill them in, nevertheless it was about the best I’ve skied it this season.

The main objective of the day didn’t quite pan out though, an access lift we wanted to make a steepish descent into some interesting terrain wasn’t running so we had to improvise around the area. That wasn’t so bad though, there was some nice powder on some slopes and some pretty interesting snow in our avalanche pits!

Up in the ski area a little more snow fell so we had a few centimetres of powder off-piste and ski conditions were probably better than last weekend with empty slopes as a bonus.

click on photograph for larger version

My plan was always to go to Grimentz and climb up there for a couple of reasons, the snow base should be better as I think they’ve had the cannons going on the lower slope and there’s a track that meanders up through the woods which is ideal to ascend and the route isn’t exposed to elevated avalanche risk. The plan worked well with the only mishap of the day being that I made a flask of coffee and forgot to put in my rucksack, so reaching 2200m I decided to stop for a coffee only to be disappointed.
There were some tracks on the way up which I hopped into, it makes things easier, from a couple of skiers maybe yesterday from the state of the trail. I’m not sure where they went as there was no descent tracks at all. Obviously the untracked powder is a bonus!

Initially it was pretty cold with the first couple of hundred of metres in the shade but as I hit the sun and started to warm I was able to take my shell and gloves off although it was still cold in the shade when I started to climb through the woods.

The snow’s looking pretty good on the way up, the base isn’t too good but it’s light powder and it looks like I’m going to get a good descent in untracked snow.

Above left, looking over to Zinal which will open tomorrow ! And skiing down the the restaurant at Grimentz in powder.

It’s the first time I’ve skied since the spring so taking the first turns into powder on a pair of skinny touring skis was awkward at first, but after a few turns the I’m looser and the turns are tighter. Sadly it’s shaded at the bottom so it’s hard to capture the slope.

click on photograph for larger version

These excerpts cover the Val d’Anniviers and surrounding area.

Your first source of information should be the SLF produced national avalanche bulletin, it’s available as a PDF to download here :

National Avalanche Bulletin

SLF also produce a snow-pack stability chart, you need to be able to read profile charts for this, each symbol can be clicked on to show the detail:

Snow pack stability chart

New Snow in the last 24 hours

New Snow in the last 3 days

Snow depth

The current webcams :

Here’s a shot of the cannons running in December last year: