After spending a fun few days with rock climbers, I was finally allowed to go skiing when Matt arrived back in town. The climbing had actually been great, although I managed to forget my camera on both days. I had a day at Gietroz with Jack and Alan, and then on Wednesday Alan and I climbed "Into the Wild", next to "Ete Indien" in the Berard Valley. The route is excellent, and whilst not quite as good as its neighbour, it is well worth the walk, and you could easily do both routes in a day if you get up early enough.
Today (Friday), Matt and I went in search of spring skiing, and headed to the recently opened Col du Petit St Bernard. There wasn't quite as much snow as we'd hoped for, but we still managed to get some really fun turns in on great spring snow, and probably skinned up about 500 vertical metres, so a really good use of a morning, and best of all we were home by 1pm. Nice.
The view from just below the Col
Getting geared up
"Ain't nobody here but us chickens"
Except for a lone Italian rando-man as it turned out!
Matt on the little summit that we skied from
Poetry in motion
"It's like Antarctica!"
The marmots are much tamer over in Italy
Heading for a coffee on the Col - still plenty of snow to go at!
Although summer is very much arriving in the Alps, there is still far more snow than normal for this time of year, so the choices over the next few days include rock climbing, mountaineering and skiing. Not a bad set of options, and I'll be blogging once I've made my decision and have more to report.