Alpine Climbing & Skiing: Frost Guiding Blog

Fantastic 4 pitch route, 45 mins walk, bolted descent, no-one else around. Excellent day!

Back to cold weather this weekend. The warm spell stripped lots of the lower icefalls but conditions are excellent a bit higher up.

This is today, somewhere in Switzerland...

There's a lot of snow here but still some good ice climbing. There aren't many folk out climbing - in the last 4 days we've seen 2 other pairs of climbers. This means extra effort making tracks, but we've had routes to ourselves.

The snow and warm temperatures means plenty of running water, and with the return of cold weather tomorrow conditions should soon be excellent. 

A fantastic day at Arolla, with blue skies, boot deep powder and no-one else around. The lifts open here this weekend and the ski season is off to a great start with snow depth in the Swiss alps around double the average for this time of year - http://www.slf.ch/lawineninfo/schneeinfo/hsm/index_EN

Blue skies, knee deep and 4 other skiers - fantastic early season skiing in Evolene today. Still no lifts - they open here the weekend before Christmas - but the skiing is so good it's well worth the uphill. It's 1200m vertical drop from the top - powder all the way to the car.

First ice routes of the year today in Arolla. Very good conditions on L'Usine Électrique and Cascade de la Fenetre at Arolla. There were climbers at La Gouille too, and all the other routes are building up fast, so things look good for the climbing season and there's more cold - but not too cold - weather forecast!