Three Cols Tour (Les Trois Cols)

Following on from the EMS course mentioned in the last post, we have to log a number of days ski touring before taking the exam course. My first tour following the course was the 3 Cols route in the Chamonix valley. This starts from the Grand Montets cable car (or the Argentiere refuge), descends to cross the Argentiere glacier before climbing to the Col du Chardonnet, a rappel down and a ski and skin lead to the Fenetre du Saleina and Col Superior du Tour, before skiing down to Le Tour village. This was a full day out, with 1200m of ascent and some really spectacular scenery. Thanks to Sandra for a great day.

How to be good (at skiing)

To follow on from the last post about how long it takes to get good at skiing, here are a few thoughts on how to get there.

Firstly, to get really good you need to ski regularly. As it takes many weeks of skiing to get to a level most people would consider to be good, a single week's holiday a year will get you there very slowly. Leaving a whole year between each time you ski also gives you a long time to get out of practice. If you are going to spend more time skiing each year, it makes sense to spread that time around the season, or even the whole year, as much as possible. That way you will have less time to forget between each visit to the slopes.

Consider a second holiday in the winter, maybe to a cheaper resort, or a long weekend ski break as well as a week's holiday. If you are lucky enough to live within an easy drive of a ski area, even a small one, then take advantage of that and go there as often as you can. The cheaper local ski centres are ignored by many in favour of saving up for a big trip to a big name resort, but each has its own unique offering which may be well worth a visit.

If you cannot manage a visit to the mountains then artificial slopes can help keep your skiing on form. A few visits before your ski holiday will get your ski legs back so that you hit the pistes in good form on the first day of the holiday. Most artificial slopes will have clubs with regular coaching sessions so you can keep improving your skiing throughout the year.

Two of the best options to extend your annual ski time are to live in a ski resort for a season, and to get at least some skiing in during the summer months. There are many ways to do a ski season, be it working in resort, or funding yourself to take a year out, but those can wait until a future post as it is a bit late for this season and early for next. Having said that, it is always worth asking around when you are in a resort this year if you want to organise something for next winter, and there may even be vacancies where people have left the resort for some reason.

Skiing during the summer months is a fantastic way to improve, as you will at least halve the gap between your skiing trips. There are many options from this ranging from a few hours on an artificial slope, through a week or two at a resort with summer skiing up to doing a whole season in the opposite hemisphere.

 Summer race training camp in Les 2 Alpes
Spreading ski training over the year

As well as increasing the time spent on skis, your rate of improvement depends a lot on what you do with that time. I am a firm believer in lessons or coaching in order to improve your skills, as practice alone can only take you so far. Skiers at any level from beginners to world champions benefit from coaching. This does not mean you have to book into ski school for a week. If you already know how to ski then an hour or two with an instructor to fine tune your technique and get an idea of what to work on can be very productive. If you are at a high level then there are many performance skiing courses you can take to improve your skiing in specific areas, be it recreationally or as a competitor.

Lastly, you can improve much faster if you approach all your skiing with this as your goal. Many skiers spend their time cruising about the same pistes, never challenging themselves, spending as much time on lunches and coffee breaks as they do on skiing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this - it is a very pleasant way to spend time in a beautiful environment, and holidays are supposed to be enjoyable after all. However you will improve faster if you constantly challenge yourself. Ski challenging runs or ski faster (always with respect for other slope users of course). Try to make every turn a good one. On easy slopes set yourself challenges - ski on one ski or do some other exercise, try not to allow the ski to skid, try to make a set number of turns in a given length of piste, or restrict yourself to skiing in a certain corridor. There are many things you can do to push yourself, but it is very easy to let your skiing stagnate if you don't do them.

How long does it take to be a good skier?

I have been asked how long it takes to be a good skier, which is pretty much an impossible question to answer. For one thing, everybody improves at a different pace. More crucial though is the question of what is meant by a good skier. However good you are, there is always somebody better. Is an instructor like myself, with an ISIA badge and a few hundred weeks on snow an example of a a good skier? I hope the people I teach would think so, but put me in a ski race and it is apparent that there are lots of skiers out there who are far better (and faster) skiers than I am. To get to a really top level requires investing a huge amount of time, from a fairly young age, as well as having the talent and opportunities and funding and determination to succeed.

If a good skier is someone who can ski black runs competently (short parallel turns for example) you are probably looking at 3 - 10 weeks from complete beginner, depending on natural ability, confidence, determination and amount/quality of instruction. To be competent off piste in any sort of snow conditions takes a good few weeks longer. Getting to an instructor level will take most people tens of weeks of skiing, whilst getting through the top level instructor courses may well take hundreds. Getting into top level competition, where the really good skiers are, will require dedicating a huge part of your life to the sport.

Lynsey Vonn - Getting to this level of skiing takes many years of dedication

Photo credits here

In the next post I plan to give a few tips on how to get good (or at least better, since 'good' is such a subjective word) at skiing.

Winter's nearly here

Les Marades, Arinsal - Yesterday

Well, I guess summer is finally over, although I've had some pretty good days rock climbing in shorts and T-Shirt as recently as a week ago. Winter is fast approaching, as you can see from the photos above taken whilst ski touring yesterday (well skinning up the closed pistes which is sort of like ski touring). Over the next month or so ski resorts around the northern hemisphere will be opening - some in November to cater for the early bird skiers, others waiting until December giving them more time to get the pistes in good condition. Opening early is good publicity for a resort, but doesn't necessarily mean they have better snow than their neighbours. It is also true that resorts opening early may well have quite a limited portion of the ski area open.

Having said all that, there is something really satisfying about skiing up to a month before most people even consider taking their holiday. The resorts are quiet apart from the arriving seasonal staff, and the pistes that are open will probably be well prepared and empty. Squeezing in a ski weekend in November is not that dificult with budget flights and a hire car - renting a car is recommended though as it can be harder to find transfers  at this time of year. A hire car also gives you more flexibility to drive in search of the best snow. If you work Monday to Friday you will probably need to take some time off on the Friday or Monday, but it will be worth it for the envious looks of your colleagues when you get back from the slopes.

Don't be worried if you arrive in the resort and there is no snow on the ground. The best skiing will usually be higher up, and the natural snow will be backed up with snow making. Unless you are very lucky you probably will not be skiing much back country and powder, so just enjoy the empty pistes and the privilege of being amongst the first people on the slopes this year.

10 Point Skiing Checklist

There always seems to be a lot to remember when going skiing, so I have a mental list I run through when going out through the door for a day's skiing. Some of these are pretty obvious - skis and boots for example - but when the kit might be in a locker on the hill, in the boot of my car, or in the appartment I like to tick off in my head that I won't need to make a frantic return home for a missing item. I've grouped them into threes to make them easier to reel off to myself in the morning.

1. Skis
2. Boots
3. Poles

4. Hat/Helmet
5. Gloves
6. Goggles/Sunglasses

7. Suncream
8. Wallet/Money
9. Keys

10. Ski pass

Binding safety

I said a couple of posts back that I was going to cover bindings and safety in the near future. I mentioned that if you loosened your bindings in the spring then it is important to tighten them again before going skiing. The big proviso of course is to make sure you tighten them to the same setting they were on before.

Adjusting your bindings is something you should only do if you know what you are doing - if you don't then leave it to your local ski shop to do. The important number is the DIN setting, which is a measure of how tight the binding is, or how difficult it is for it to release in a fall. If the DIN setting is low the bindings will release easily, with a high setting it will take a lot more to make them release. The idea is that the bindings release your boot from the ski before you injure your leg, but don't release prematurely when you are not at risk of injury. A binding releasing unexpectedly, or pre-releasing, can lead to injury as well. Setting the DIN will always be a compromise, as a low speed fall can break a leg or twist a knee whilst applying lower forces to the binding than skiing bumps at high speed for example. Each manufacturer produces a chart to determine the correct setting for a skier, taking into account variables such as skier height, weight, ability, style of skiing and boot sole length. Once you know your setting you should aim to buy a binding with that number close to the centre of its range, rather than at one extreme or the other.

Skiers often set the heel bindings tighter than the toepiece, because they believe they will put greater forces on the heelpiece when skiing. However the binding manufacturers are well aware of how people ski, and the heelpiece springs are much tighter than the toepiece ones already so toe and heel should always be set the same.

The DIN setting will only work accurately if the binding is adjusted properly for the boot. Boot sole length and forward pressure have to be correct for the binding to release as it should, and these are adjusted and checked differently for each make of binding. This is another reason to let a shop adjust your bindings for you unless you are sure you know what you are doing.

Time to Tighten Your Bindings

For those of you who loosened your DIN settings when putting your skis away at the end of last winter - as I advised in my Summer Ski Care post back in May - don't forget to tighten them up again before you hit the slopes. I know it seems obvious, but it is easily overlooked and a ski pre-releasing can have unpleasant consequences.

A few years ago I was working as a Plongeur (washer upper / kitchen porter / dogsbody) in Meribel. After a couple of days of hard work on arrival, I got my first chance to go for a ski. I grabbed my old straight Salomon Equipes, went up the chairlift and did about three turns in chopped up snow before both skis ejected. Thinking this was a bit odd, as I wiped the snow out of my goggles I checked the bindings and realised both were wound down to about three. I put the skis back on and gingerly traversed onto smooth groomed terrain to take the easiest route back down and find a screwdriver. Unfortunately I forgot myself halfway down, and took a tiny bit of air from a tiny bump. As I landed the right ski released and the brake chose that moment to detach itself from the ski - I think the screw pulled out of the plastic. The ski accelerated faster than I could manage on one ski at the time, and I careered after it, terrified that it would injure somebody, or worse. Luckily it shot off the side of the piste and into the trees without doing any damage. Less luckily that was the last I saw of it, despite an extensive search. I was forced to become a full-time snowboarder for a couple of weeks until I found a pair of previous season Volkl P40s in a sale rack.

I know it is early season, and you may not be skiing for another few weeks or months, but the season is beginning, so a reminder is timely for resort staff, ski-bums and anyone getting some snow in before Christmas. Of course forgetting this little detail won't usually lead you to lose a few hundred Euros' worth of ski kit, but it can easily lead to unexpected falls and potential injury. One final point to note, is that it important to tighten the binding to the same DIN setting as it was at before, assuming it was correct. A binding set too tight or too lose can be dangerous. I will elaborate on pre-season ski servicing, and binding safety in the next couple of posts, but for now, ski safe.

A Chamonix Chalet

As regular readers will know I have been working in the Chamonix valley for the summer and autumn. Although not ideal for beginners this really is a fantastic place for skiers and moutaineers (and snowboarders, rock climbers, mountain bikers etc.) looking for the steep and the big. This valley really is on a different scale to any other European ski resorts I have visited, and I've been to a lot of them over the years.

For anyone interested in visiting the valley this winter, the Ice-Break Chalet just up the road from me deserves a mention. My friend and occasional climbing partner Martin is running the business with his fiance Abi his winter. Unlike a conventional chalet they are offering holidays for anything from a week to a whole season (5 months) with all the traditional home comforts of an up-market chalet - half board with wine, sauna, DVD and internet, log fire and so on, plus ski workshop and free transport to the slopes and around the valley. It sounds to me like an incredibly luxurious way of spending a ski season - I remember sleeping in a hole under the basement stairs of a chalet in Meribel for a season, while friends crammed into a shoebox in Val D'Isere which barely had room for a set of bunkbeds and a cooker. When you factor in the amount spent on food and drink in a typical season in the Alps, living in comfort in a catered chalet might not be all that expensive.

The other big bonus of this setup is always having somebody to hit the slopes with who knows their way around the valley. Martin is a BASI qualified snowboard instructor and is training to be a UIAGM mountain guide with ENSA (the French national school for skiing and alpinism) so he is a good guy to be on the hill with.

Anyway, if you're interested check them out at http://www.ice-break.co.uk. They also have a blog of life in the valley on the site which is worth a look for snow updates and photos.

As we are into November, watch out for some more ski oriented posts from now on. My season starts in 10 days when I head over to Tignes for skiing on the glacier, so the countdown is on.

How to extend your winter season

Many people I speak to seem to think that the ski season lasts from Christmas until February. There is a mad rush to fit everybody's holiday into a few short weeks. Even seasoned skiers often seem to think the season is basically late December until mid March. In fact it is quite easy to make a winter season last six months or more in Europe. This year I am planning to do five months (mid-November to mid-April) but it will be running out of money and work that ends the winter, rather than running out of snow. Similarly, most ski resorts shut in April when the customers dry up, not when the snow melts.

To start the long winter, plan some warm up weeks in a high resort with a glacier. I'm heading to Tignes in November for four weeks race training, but there are other options. No resorts will be fully open, but some will have quite a few runs. In late November and early December, watch out for resorts opening early, especially if there is good snowfall. Last year several Austrian resorts opened a few weeks earlier than planned to take advantage of good conditions - the publicity was probably worth more to them than the actual tickets they sold.

Opening dates proper are spread throughout the first half of December (with one or two exceptions) so from then until April it's easy. Take your pick of resorts or travel between them.

Into April, and resorts start to close as they run out of customers. Most of the bigger resorts will be open until late April at least. Some, such as Val D'Isere or Chamonix are open until early May. After that it is time to get out the skins and start hiking, as the only way up is under you own steam. May is the height of the ski touring season - spring snow, longer days, safer conditions and no crowds mean ideal conditions for gettting away into the back country. Most years ski touring will be possible well into June.

After that, well if you want to keep skiing it's back to the glaciers for summer skiing. Or up to the Arctic Circle to ski under the midnight sun. Or down to NZ, Oz or South America.

Hopefully this might give some of you some ideas, either to extend your ski season, or to slip in an extra holiday or long weekend. Of course there is a whole world out there - there are lots more places to ski in Europe than those I've mentioned, let alone North America and Asia.

By the way the photos are from Tignes last November and Chamonix in May.

Get The Iron Out

It's only two months until ski areas start opening around Europe, and the Northern Hemisphere. If you want to make it feel a little bit closer and you have a bit of free time, why not get out your skis and give them some TLC. Not only will it make you feel better while you are missing the snow, it will make them faster as well. If you serviced the skis well at the end of the season, there is no need to sharpen the edges, and no need to scrape the wax off either. Just iron in a new layer of wax, leave them somewhere warm for a couple of hours, then put them away again. Use a mid-range wax for this, not an expensive high-fluoro wax which is not long lasting enough. The idea is that each time you apply wax it will impregnate itself deeper into the base, lasting longer and making the base faster.

Ski Fitness - Summary

To round up the series of articles on ski fitness, I want to sumarize the last few posts, but also to discuss the relevance of other sports and activities.

Apologies for the lack of pictures in this longish post - I will post some more soon.

The important muscles for skiing are obviously the leg muscles - the quadriceps group but also the hamstrings, the core muscles of the abdominals and back, and also to an extent the arm muscles.

Three areas of importance are cardivascular (aerobic) endurance, strength and flexibility. For a typical recreational skier wanting to ski all day without getting too tired the first is the most relevant. As the performance level increases strength and flexibility become more important. Flexibility allows the body to make the necessary shapes more easily and is developed through streching programmes - remember to do stretches after other exercises as static stretches before exercise can increase the chance of injury.

Strength training allows the body to effectively manage the forces that build up in high performance skiing. A wide range of muscles come into play, so the best training will use free weights to develop more muscles. To perform at your highest level on skis will require some effort spent on strength and flexibility training.

Exercises such as running, cycling or team sports will develop cardiovascular fitness and help with muscular endurance. Some form of aerobic exercise like this should be used as part of any programme. However they will not build a lot of strength in the skiing muscles (i.e. you can still expect some aches after the first day or two back on skis). Swimming can be good as it develops a wide range of muscles in an impact free way. In fact most sports will have a positive effect on skiing ability. For most people, simply keeping fit and active is the best preparation, accepting the odd first day aches as just a part of skiing. If your skiing holiday is your only exercise for the year (and we see plenty in this category in the ski school) then it will be really hard work, and not as fun as it could be.

A few sessions on an artificial slope in the off season can help keep the skiing muscles in trim, particularly in the run up to the holiday. Those of you who are luccky enough to live near the mountains and ski at weekends probably have far fewer problems than those who do their winter's skiing in one week away.

Ski Fitness - Arms

Continuing the recent theme, I want to move on to the arm and shoulder muscles. Apart from holding and planting the poles, it is not that obvious that the arm muscles have any great importance in skiing. However, if the arms begin to flail when the terrain gets rough, it will be difficult to maintain a balanced position. The arms should be kept forward and strong to help keep the upper body still in a good position. Admittedly there are plenty of good skiers seen skiing with their hands in their pockets, but most would bring their hands up and forward when tackling difficult terrain, particularly at speed.

When caught off balance, an arm will often get flung back. To recover effectively means driving the arm back forward into a strong bablanced position.

Maintaining and regaining a strong arm position is obviously easier with sufficient arm and shoulder strength. There are several approaches to this, with free weights being probably the most effective. Exercises such as bench presses and shoulder presses are good, as well as those exercising several muscles together like push presses or cleans. Various dumbell exercises can also be used, as well as weight machines. Finally, push ups and pull ups require little equipment, and can play a part in any training programme.

As before, I only intend to give suggestions to get you started. It is important to do any free weight exercises correctly and safely so it is best to get advice from a trainer or coach.

Ski Fitness - Core

I want to continue the ski fitness series by moving on to the core muscles. As with most sports, core strength is important in skiing for stability and balance. Having a solid core will enable you to maintain a strong position even when the terrain is trying to throw you off balance. This is especially true in bumps, crud or slush - all the difficult, uneven conditions really.

The core muscles are the abs and back. Various exercises for these go in and out of fashion - sit-ups and crunches are less popular at the moment for example. The current popular exercises are things like the plank, or the many Swiss-ball exercises. Also good are press-up variations (e.g. clapping your hands during press ups).

As with the legs, free weights are good for a range of muscles. Again, squats are a great starting point, and should be included in any weights programme for skiing. In fact, some would say squats are about the only exercise you need.

It really is up to you to find what works - there are many approaches to developing core strength. However, it is not to be ignored if you want to maximise your performance. The next fitness post will move up the body again to the arms.

Ski Fitness - Legs

Continuing the theme of getting fit for skiing over the summer season, I want to start with the legs. The main muscles used in skiing are the quads at the front of the thighs, and the hamstrings at the back. Most people would probably guess that the quads are more important, but in fact if you are correctly balanced the hamstrings will take a large part of the load. If your quads feel seriously tired when skiing you are probably sitting two far back - I will return to this point in the future, but for now I want to concentrate on physical rather than technical training.

Strength and endurance are both important, and the balance depends on the type of skiing you want to do. If you want to ski well all day you will need more endurance, whereas racers or competitive bump skiers for example will obviously need more strength and power over a shorter period of time.

Running, cycling, swimming etc. will all improve general aerobic fitness and endurance, and some form of aerobic training should be included in pretty much any programme. For recreational skiers, a good general level of aeorobic fitness and an efficient skiing technique are all you need to be able to cruise the slopes all day without feeling too tired at the end of the day.

Competitive skiers, and those looking for a higher level of performance will need to look at strength training, i.e. using weights. The leg press machine is a start, but squats are a lot better and work the core muscles as well. Whether using free weights or machines it is important to exercise the hamstrings as well as the quads.

To improve your ability to make explosive movements, plyometric exercises can be useful, especially later in the programme.

Finally, most people will benefit from a stretching programme to improve flexibility. This is quite underrated by many skiers, but being flexible can help as much as being stronger. However, avoid doing static stretches before exercise (e.g. as part of a warm up), as it can make you more prone to injury. Do the stretches after the exercise session.

This post is really just an introduction, with a few pointers to what will help with skiing. You need to know what you are doing when embarking on a weights programme, so find a trainer or coach if necessary, or get advice at your local gymn.

I plan to continue the fitness theme over the next few posts, since there is not a lot of skiing to be done at the moment for most of us.

Skiing Fitness - Which muscles to use?

With it being the off season for skiers in the Northern Hemisphere, it is a good time to look at training over the summer months. I plan to cover some different aspect of this over the next few posts - and yes, there will be more on unicycles.

The image above shows (roughly) the various muscle areas that are important to skiing. The obvious area is the quadriceps, marked in blue. These are the muscles that most people will think of in connection with skiing. However the quads are not the only, nor even the most, important muscles for skiing. The hamstrings, marked in green, are at least as important and perhaps harder to train effectively. Like most sports the core muscles (abs and back, marked in red) are very important. Finally arm strength has a role to play in high performance skiing.

An all round training programme needs the right balance of speed, strength, endurance and aerobic fitness training, and also needs to suit the type of skiing you do. A bumps specialist will have different needs from a ski mountaineer. In either case though, it is better to start now and build up a good base rather than leaving it until the weeks before the next ski trip.

The next post will cover the leg muscles - quads and hamstrings - what we use them for and how to train them.

Arinsal Closing Weekend Last Month

I am posting another picture from the last weekend in Arinsal, just to illustrate how much snow there is at the end of the season. This was the 12th April on the afternoon after the Ski School Race. Three of us had just skied the chute in the middle of the cliff band, which is pretty much the only couloir in the Arinsal ski area and had been on my list to do for a while.

I would have posted it sooner, but the trip to Chamonix for the second half of April got in the way of posting for a while, and by then I had plenty of ski touring pictures to post as well. Hopefully this will illustrate the point I have made before, that contrary to popular opinion the end of season is still a great time to go skiing.

Martian Skiers?

Firstly I would like to apologise for the length of time since my last post - I have been having some issues with the Blogger platform.

You may have seen Nasa's photographs from the Phoenix lander which touched down on Mars yesterday. Much has been made of the "quilted" patterns in the Martian landscape, and how they may have formed. My first impression though is that, colour aside (and the colour is false anyway), they bear a remarkable resemblance to a bumps run in any ski resort.

Okay, I am not seriously suggesting that Mars is inhabited by snow loving alien skiers, although there are some pretty big mountains over there. Perhaps I have just reached the point where I see something ski related in every news item or photo.

Mont Blanc Du Tacul (nearly)

The last trip in Chamonix was planned to be an ascent of Mont Blanc du Tacul - a subsidiary peak of Mont Blanc and a 4000m mountain in its own right. Unfortunately we left it too late booking the cable car and had to get the 9am rather than the 8am lift. Next there was a slow moving queue of people doing the Valleé Blanche on the knife edge ridge out of the top station, so it was after 10 o'clock by the time we actually started the climb up.

We knew that we had to be on the way down by 1pm, as the snow bridges on glaciers lower down would be weakening in the warm weather. In particular an area known as the Salle a Manger* was reported to have several weak snow bridges. We would have to cross these on our descent of the Valleé Blanche after the climb. Unfortunately we were still several hundred vertical metres short of the summit by one, so reluctantly switched crampons for skis and headed down. Near the end of the descent we came across a lake which had formed on the glacier from melting ice. It was a remarkable shade of blue, with black caves visible in the depths below a few floating icebergs. Photos from the day are posted below.

*Salle a Manger is French for Dining room, as this is an area where many people stop to eat their packed lunches, often in unwise places, on the descent. A lot of people seem oblivious to the dangers of glaciers and the high mountain environment, perhaps because the skiing is not too demanding and there are plenty of other people about. However a number of people have been killed on the Valleé Blanche descent this year, often through ignoring their guide's advice. It is quite frightening to see people sitting beneath creaking seracs and loaded avalanche prone slopes, or taking their skis off while wandering about crevasse zones.

The queue on the ridge

Ian on the climb

A lake formed in the glacier on the way down

Back home

As of late last night, I am back home in England. I have a mountain of gear to unpack, and a mountain of clothes to put through the washing machine. It's already hard to believe I was in Chamonix only yesterday morning.

I am trying to figure out how to get back to the snow as quickly as possible. The main options at the moment are summer skiing on the European glaciers, or South America. Australia/New Zealand are obvious possibilities as well. Really I need to consider where I can train effectively for the Eurotest in November. It is a tough test, but a major step on the way to the full ISTD qualification.

On the blogging front, I plan to get back to providing a mix of skiing advice, photos, reports on my ski related activities and the odd bit of opinion. I have a few more photos from Chamonix to post, a couple of lessons in the pipeline, something on off-season ski care and after that I'll make it up as I go along.

I've had a really great season this year, and have managed to drag it out into almost six months, which is the longest one I've done, and skied in four countries. Thank you to all the people I've skied with and partied with, to everybody who's been reading and especially to those who have taken the time to comment or email.

Aguille Crochues

This time I have some photos from the other side of the Chamonix valley - we hiked to the Aguille Crochues from the Flegere and Index lifts via Lac Blanc. At 2837m it is not a high peak in the region, but it is a peak nontheless and none of my previous tours have taken in an Alpine summit. We were hoping for some spring corn skiing back down, but it was a little late in the day so we had to be content with untracked but heavy snow.

Apologies to those of you who have previously commented positively on the ski tips posts - there will be more of those in the near future. At the moment I'm afraid I've been having too much fun skiing, touring and having an end of season holiday.

The Aguille Crochues on the way up

Ian on the way down

The Aguille Crochues from near the lift station - the peak in the middle of the skyline - we ascended behind the skyline ridge.