From Siberian Cold to Summer Warm

Mother nature has been moody and gone between two extremes; The first half of Feb we hardly stuck our noses out the window without wearing double down jackets, boot heating, and full facial protection against the freezing winds. By the end of the month we went ski touring in t-shirt and skied slushy spring snow.

Through it all the sun has been shining relentlessly, not really any fresh snow to talk about. However, the siberian cold-spell dried out the snow pack and the powder was recycled to offer light and soft snow on ski touring descents. As the temperatures became more reasonable, ice falls had formed even down in Les Houches, and we treated our selves with ice climbing trips to Cogne and ice falls around the Chamonix valley. When spring came for real the ice fell off and snow transformed into corn within a weeks time.

Chamonix Skiing Feb 2012

Certainly was a bit of everything, but we’re looking back on a lot of good skiing and ski touring to new places with untouched snow in the Mt Blanc massif. Enjoy the 3rd video episode of Chamonix skiing:

Chamonix Ski Report March 2012

A typical month of March have passed, which means you get the full spectrum of off-piste and ski mountaineering experiences. The valley turned to spring and we skied corn snow on south faces, while north faces still offered powder skiing.

As Chamonix did not get the most out of the few dumps there were in the western Alps in March, it has been ski touring most days except for a few powder-days off the lifts. However, after a bigger snow fall in mid-March the snow stayed cold and soft on the north sides for the rest of the month and the snow cover still reaches to the valley floor for the end of our ski tours.

More…

– Guided off-piste skiing in Chamonix
– Guided ski touring in Chamonix
– Chamonix off-piste skiing in December 2011 and January 2012