This is a photo of a photo on the wall of the hut, and ideally, this would have been the situation that we would have encountered as we left this morning.
Sadly, the weather continues to less than ideal, so we togged up inside and braced ourselves for the great outdoors...
Which this morning looked more like this...
The hut that we were ideally heading to is only a short distance away over a high pass, but with the conditions as they were, we decided that descending back down the the village of St Véran was the safest option. On the plus side, we got a a bit of skiing in, as we descended.
We had to skate a few sections of shallow angle stuff but the last section to the village was a hoot - just steep enough to move without any effort and we glided back to the cars grinning.
First stop in St Véran was the village bakery, where we managed to score the last croissants in the valley and a fresh baguette.
A bit of internet was located and options considered. The forecast is still not ideal for the next few days across most of France, so even heading south to rock climb wasn't an obviously sunny move. In the end, we decided to drive around to the next valley and skin (walk with skis on) back up to the hut that we'd hoped to access over the high pass. It would at least be a safe route up and maybe it would lead to a last chance ski?!...
It felt like a long way given the mornings activity and the weather wasn't getting any better. Half way up, the hut guardian came down on his skidoo and took our bags for us! It was a wonderfully generous offer, but unfortunately I was bit quick to oblige and felt pretty silly (and thirsty) as he sped off with all our safety gear, water and spare clothes etc! Luckily for us (but less so for Dave) Dave had not been offered the rucsack taxi, so when he caught up he shared his water with us!
Eventually the hut loomed into view and we were welcomed into the warmth by the moustached guardian. After a tough afternoon, we were delighted to find a sofa in front of the roaring fire (unprecedented furnishings!) and soon nestled in for the evening.
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