Alpine Climbing & Skiing: Frost Guiding Blog

 Excellent weather and conditions for last week's Haute Route tour. We went the Valsorey route - a stiff introduction to ski touring for 2 of the team! It all went well though and we found good conditions on all the tricky bits, especially the Plateau du Couloir. Friday saw us skiing into Zermatt for a well-earned beer or 2...

 A great week ski touring around Arolla. After a warm-up day we went over to the Dix hut, with a quick trip to the Col de Cheilon in the afternoon. Next day we skinned up Mont Blanc de Cheilon - very cold in the morning but we were rewarded with perfect weather, great views and good snow for the descent. 

On Thursday we went to the beautiful and quiet Aiguilles Rouges hut - a welcome change after the busy Dix hut, but a challenging trip through the Col des Ignes with some steep skinning. 

Today, we skied Pointe de Vouasson. Amazing conditions with some good powder skiing high up followed by great spring snow and some comedy tree skiing linking patches of snow and grass through the woods lower down. 1700m of quality skiing ending at a bar!

 Blue skies this morning in Arolla and perfect powder in the Ignes couloir - fresh tracks and no-one else around. After one run it was warming up fast so we skied down to la Gouille then drove to Bramois for the first rock climbing of the summer - proof that skiers thighs don't help on steep rock!

 The perfect weather of day 1 didn't last - day 2 saw us heading over to the Dix hut in worsening conditions, and our attempt on la Luette turned back with strong winds and some awful snow. A good night and excellent food in the hut though. 

                The forecast for Sunday improved in the evening and we decided to go for the Verbier finish - a long day. That meant leaving the early hut in heavy snow and poor visibility - the snow down the Pas du Chat was excellent but poor visibility made the skiing tricky and made it all feel very adventurous!

On the long climb "along the side of the Lac des Dix" we met 2 other teams going the other way - the only people we saw all day. Climbing up to the Col des Roux the weather at last improved - briefly - and the other side was perfect snow and a great ski...into yet more cloud. 

Deciding to abandon the Verbier finish we headed down to Pralong in yet another thick cloud. Adventurous skiing in some wild terrain. Lower down we lost the clouds, found some good skiing, then immediately lost a ski...Oh well, soon we were drinking a welcome beer in Pralong after an exciting climax to a great 3 day trip.

 Amazing snow today on the first day of the Zinal Verbier trip. We were the first team down from Sorebois to the Moiry dam in perfect snow. Then, up the Grimentz lifts and over to the Becs des Bossons hut. Now we had a long descent ahead of us and a bus to catch...luckily the snow was still skiable in the afternoon sun. Unfortunately we ran out of snow above Eison and had to walk a bit, missed the bus (again) but got lifts and all ended well with beer in the sun in Arolla.