Powder Skiing vs Grand Mont Touring

Having checked about a hundred weather forecasts, in the hope of finding some good news, we went to bed thinking that we'd have a bit of a rest day today, given the gloomy forecast. It had been raining heavily during dinner, but one last look outside before sleep, revealed that the rain had turned to heavy snow - it was belting it down!



Imagine our surprise then, to wake up and find that, despite all the forecasts to the contrary, the skies had cleared! And there was tonnes of fresh snow! We scrambled out of bed as fast as we could and packed our touring gear, hoping to make an ascent of the Grand Mont.

However, on realising just how much snow had fallen (knee deep!), we spent the morning, using the lifts to ski as much of it as we could.



It's hard to explain how good it feels to ski such snow. It's totally silent, smooth and slow. Pure magic.



We skied pitch after pitch, letting the lifts take the strain, before catching the one to the top of the Areche area, to start an ascent of the Grand Mont.



We skinned over to the Col de Forclaz, but our luck ran out about here. The clouds rolled in...



The visibility soon diminished and we stopped to take stock of the situation.



Heavy snow started to fall and it all too soon became clear that continuing upwards would be foolhardy. It was time to take the skins off our skis and get into downhill mode. The summit would still be there another day.



Not for the first time on this trip, we were stood in a white out...

It was a short but cautious descent to get back to the ski area, in a major snow storm. On arrival at the pistes, the visibility was all but non-existent; I skied straight off a rather high wall of snow, landing an metre or so below, hard on the piste. I barley had time to ascertain that I was uninjured, went propelled by momentum, I fell off the other (unseen) side of the piste, but this time into deep powder!

We cautiously made it back out of the clouds and an hour or so later, we got some views back!



The trees were laden with fresh snow - so much was falling that we were now putting fresh tracks up the drag lifts!



Later in the afternoon, we found somewhere for a rest in the sunshine. As you can see, even though it's Easter weekend, it's hardly busy here! The sunshine felt great.



With some hot chocolate, coffee and chips inside us, we continued down and around the hillside to our village, as another bank of clouds rolled in.



We arrived back at the Refuge des Marmottes, just as the snowflakes started falling again. Looks like there might be more fresh tracks to be had in the morning...