Alpine Climbing & Skiing: Frost Guiding Blog

 On Thursday we made the classic Tour of Mont Collon from Arolla via the Col des Vignettes and Col de l'Éveque. This is a beautiful and long day trip through stunning scenery, but as soon as we left the Haute Route bumps the snow on the descent was...awful. Oh dear. 

Looking for a relaxing finish to the week we went back to Nax yesterday. A quick tour into the Val de Reche and up to Mont Gautier found excellent spring snow - so good we did another lap!

 Despite the hot weather there's still plenty of great skiing to be done. Nax yesterday had a choice of good spring snow in the sunny slopes or untracked powder in the shade. Today in Arolla there was more of the same on the Col des Ignes. Great skiing and no-one else around.

Sadly parking meters have appeared in Arolla ski carpark, so it looks like soon you'll be paying to park in a muddy puddle with no toilet facilities, then paying for creaky old lifts...or you could go to Nax where the parking is free and the lifts work. And there's a toilet. 

 There's a great little video here from last week in the Tarentaise:

The rest of my pictures are here.

Just back from a fantastic week in the Tarentaise ski area. We stayed at the excellent Auberge Sur la Montagne in St Foy, and skied in St Foy, Les Arcs and Val d'Isere. Whilst the lift access skiing here is world class and enough for a lifetime, the day touring possibilities are endless - we did some of the classics like the Foglietta, Col de Monseti, Grand Col in les Arcs, Col des Monts in Val d'Isere.  

 We made an early start on the first lift from Arolla today, and 1200m of uphill later we reached the summit of La Luette - an excellent ski tour. The ski from the top wasn't great but the rest of the glacier was perfect powder and fresh tracks. 

 Fantastic weather this week and some really good touring conditions with powder in the shade and spring snow in the sun and only a little bit of crust in between...

Pictures here from the Tour of Mont Collon yesterday. Arolla - col des Vignettes - Col de l'Eveque - glacier d'Arolla - Arolla. 

Lots of pictures here from the last week in Grimentz. We were staying at the excellent Moiry Hotel  and skiing some great snow, nice touring and some steep bits...

 Despite the hot conditions there's still some great skiing around. Yesterday we toured up the romantically named Point 2959 before skiing untracked powder into the Vallon des Ignes. Encouraged by the snow conditions we climbed back to the point before making the long descent all the way to la Gouille. 

 Unseasonal hot weather - not just warm, it's definitely hot - has meant some early starts and finishes but still some good skiing. At Evolene on Tuesday we toured up the Pic Artsinol before skiing the steep gully from the summit on great snow. Wednesday in Nax got off to a dodgy start with shocking crust below the Brechette, but then some good powder lower down and some great skiing in the lift area. Today we toured up to the Vignettes hut, had lunch on the helipad then skied some really good snow and fresh tracks back down the glacier.