Frost Guiding Blog

Pigne d'Arolla

Excellent spring snow on the Pigne d'Arolla this morning, and you can still ski almost to the car park. There's more snow forecast so it looks like the skiing will last a bit longer yet...

Chamonix Skiing

Another 2 days excellent skiing in Chamonix. After the weekend snowfall we headed off up the Argentiere glacier on Monday for some more fresh tracks. Then on Tuesday with bad weather forecast for the afternoon we made a quick descent down a deserted Grand Envers from the Midi lift. Powder at the top then good spring snow - fantastic end of season skiing! This time we climbed the ladders to the station and walked/skied from there instead of battling the glacier exit again.

Ch�r� Couloir

Lots of snow and strong winds recently have left poor conditions for climbing, but the Chéré couloir is fairly reliable. A quick ski over from the lift saw us ploughing up the snow the the start. Above, the ice was excellent, giving enjoyable climbing despite the spindrift.

After abseiling, we decided to ski the Vallée Blanche. This was strangely deserted - untracked down the Rognon variant - and we only saw 3 other people. Good snow to the Montenvers lift, but as the train is closed we carried on down the glacier, soon running out of snow and battling through moraine rubble to reach the buvette, then through fallen trees from the weekend storm all the way to Chamonix and a well-earned coffee.

Gran Paradiso Ski

More bad weather on Wednesday saw us abandoning Chamonix for sunny Italy and the Gran Paradiso. After an afternoon worrying about weather in the Chabod hut, Thursday morning dawned clear and still. Phew. Leaving the hut first meant lots of trailbreaking but it was worth it - perfect weather, and a spectacular descent! Untracked powder for 1000m, 2 crusty turns, then great spring snow.

Cosmiques arete

With lots of fresh snow and a dubious forecast the Cosmiques Arete gave some challenging climbing on Tuesday. The Montenvers train is closed so no-one is skiing the Vallée Blanche and the place is deserted - we were the only people on the route, and saw 5 other skiers.

Patrouille des Glaciers

Preparation for the Patrouille des Glaciers is going well apparently, despite the weather. Arolla has become a military base, with 5 helicopters parked at the improvised landing site in Satarma today. This has to be the prime slot for your military service - Arolla or Afghanistan? Amusingly only days after the commune installed parking meters in Arolla, the army have closed off all the parking! We had a great ski in windy conditions up to the Vignettes hut, then 1000m of great untracked snow back down after lunch.

Imperial Haute Route

The Imperial Haute Route is the classic Val d'Anniviers tour. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side. Day 1, after a long wait for the lifts in St luc to open, saw us battling poor visibility and delicate avalanche conditions to reach the Turtmann hut. Day 2 was worse, and we spent the day snowed at in the hut. Rewarded by clear skies on day 3 we set off for Tracuit, a perfect day with stunning views at last.

The descent from Tacuit was a clear winner in the worst snow of the winter competition - 1300 vertical metres of breaking crust in poor visibility. Hmmm. Abandoning plans to head up to Grand Mountet we were happy to find great skiing yesterday in the Zinal and Grimentz areas, a nice end to the week.

Chamonix Climbing

A change of activity this week...The weather wasn't helpful on Sunday, meaning all we managed was a ride up the Grands Montets lift for a coffee - the café at the top was full of people waiting in vain for the forecast improvement.

Monday was better though. After the usual "service with a scowl" from the Midi staff, we were soon up the lift and snowshoeing over for a great traverse of the Pointe Lachenal.

Tuesday and the Midi staff were still grumpy - can the end of season not come soon enough for them? - but we climbed the Cosmiques Arete in more wild and windy weather.

Haute Route

Success against the odds last week on the Chamonix Zermatt Haute Route. After a great warm up day we set off from Argentiere with fingers crossed for the weather...the forecast wasn't good!

All went well though, the bad weather not arriving until we were safely in the Dix hut. Next morning we woke to 25cm of fresh snow and a mass retreat over the Pas de Chevre. Optimistically we slogged up to the Vignettes hut in the afternoon. Again the forecast was mixed but happily Friday dawned clear and we skied powder to Zermatt under blue skies - a great end to the week!

Vall�e Blanche

Excellent day today on the Vallée Blanche. It's peak season but we were at the lift early and soon skiing rock hard snow...We toured up to the Helbronner café for a well earned coffee then skied the right bank of the glacier - excellent and atmospheric skiing.