An amazing two weeks, skiing more fresh snow than I have ever encountered before. Day after day the snow was topped up, and I hope I might just have improved my skiing!
As usual, I'm playing catch up, but I did get a good opportunity to try out my new Scott Punisher skis.Another superb powder day saw us meeting up with friend JT from Snowheads and along with a group of his friends we found some very dry, light and wonderfully fluffy slopeside powder.
JT was using his new Movement Gladiators and says he likes them, though I did catch him digging a snow pit with his head!
In his defence, he says, that it's a nice straight line (as far as it goes).Andy, who only likes skiing on groomed pistes, has discovered that it's fun to ski the fluffy stuff.
Of course, all this fresh snow has it's downside when you want to use the car to visit another village.
The digging took a while, but afterwards, we managed to get over to St Luc to meet and ski with another of the Anniviers Facebook group members, Rodney and his wife Pam. Rodney likes to ski quite fast, and is discussing with Andy how to get to the bottom of the Prilet piste in St Luc in sub 4 minutes. I let them go ahead, it's probably a man thing.
We made a couple of visits to Zinal during our stay, and the resort was quite busy with a Parapente competition. Here is one of the sponsors with a little airship.
The slopeside powder in Zinal was well worn, but I still enjoyed myself anyway!
Back over in Grimentz,I tried this shortcut on the run down to the village, I made good use of it, and so did lots of other folks.We discovered a little chute after picnicking nearby, it was just waiting to be skied. Well actually others got there before me, and identified the rocks!
I did manage to lure Andy into Abondance, and we had a close up view of some avalanche debris. It was very close to the route, and it's easy to see why this Itinerary gets closed for days on end.
We made a day trip over to Vercorin, which was very quiet, and quite cold. There was a fog in the Rhone valley which looked quite spooky.
Zinal in the sunshine, provides a good counterpoint....
It's not often that powder is the predominant type of snow for a holiday. We feel very fortunate to have had a whole 2 weeks of the fluffy stuff.
