Patrouille des Glaciers

Whilst in Zermatt recently I was fortunate to see the start of the mountain race between Zermatt and Verbier. This only takes place every 2 years and it's pretty tough. There were hundreds of soldiers in Zermatt to manage the start and the preparations. I was quite surprised at the large numbers of the media there, but when lots of exotic looking skis filled up the ski room in my hotel, I realised it was a pretty big event.

During the afternoon the army band officially opened the event by marching through the village.



The start on this, the first night, was outside the main railway station in the centre of the village, and the main street was fenced and roped off by nightfall.

I bagged a position along the fence near to the start and was in place to see the tape go down and a row of soldiers hold back the racers until the official count down is over. The soldiers make a run for the fence and the competitors surge forwards.



Most of them were wearing trainers, and had their ski boots fixed into their bindings on their skis, strapped onto their packs. As I walked back to the comfort of my (now) quiet hotel, I imagined that I would be having a much better nights sleep than any of the racers (who skied and climbed all night).

Mountain Bite

This is a friends Giro helmet. He was wearing it when he lost a ski and somersaulted onto some rocks last month, while we were skiing together. He had a bruised arm and sore knee as well.

In fact all his focus was on his sore arm. I went over and picked up his kit and he skied back onto the piste to take stock, and only then did I see the rock sticking out of his helmet. I really thought that it was a piece of rock stuck onto the snow,which was stuck on his helmet. I was pretty surprised when I pulled it out of a hole.

It had gone right through, and he had a graze on his hairline, the helmet stopped the rock going further.

He's going to buy a new helmet.

Beep

This winter I'd promised myself that I'd get some snow time practice in with my Transceiver. I've practised in two dimensions, but I really wanted to have a try in the local Avalanche Training Centre in Zinal.

I have an Analogue Transceiver, an Ortovox F1 Focus, and I had the perfect opportunity to spend a sunny afternoon at the free facility in Zinal. The snow was warm and soft, and not too good for skiing, but perfect to practice in the warm sunshine.

The facility is really easy to use, with instructions available in several languages, and once I'd set the timer and number of "victims" to search for I began to discover just how tiring it is to clamber around wearing ski boots in hilly conditions using a probe and Transceiver.

The facility has buried several responders around the site, and searchers have to find them and touch them with their probe to switch them off. I had good success at getting close in using my Transceiver, but failed to get a pinpoint location every time I tried. I don't know if my machine is faulty, my skills are deficient, the facility has a fault, or it really only works with 2 Transceivers. My machine kept losing it's direction signal when I switched to close range, new batteries too!

The experience made me understand just how exhausting it is to going to be to search for a buried person under Avalanche debris.

I'm sad to report that my 2 "buried victims" would have died as I failed to find them in the search time I'd set.

Pass The Soap

Lots of new visitors to the Anniviers Valley are a little overwhelmed by the narrow steep road from Sierre. Well, there is some good news and bad news. The good news is that this road is closed during the daytime until mid June. There are roadworks in progress.

The bad news is that all traffic must travel up via Vercorin to Mayoux, which is quite a lot narrower.
I had my doubts that the Postbus would even try to run a service using full size vehicles, would they borrow some minibuses? Make that a no!
Even delivery vans fill the road, and remember, this is 2 way.


I had been idly wondering what would happen if the Postbus I was on met something bigger, and on cue along came a really large lorry. It really does not matter how many air horns you have and which tunes they play, both these vehicles are too big for the road they are on.


In Switzerland the Postbus should have right of way, but as the the lorry had a tail of cars and vans behind it, reversing was impractical. Impasse!

The solution was found! The Postbus reversed a small way, crossed onto the opposite side of the road, allowing the lorry to pass alongside, now also on the "wrong" side.


We did this once again before we arrived in Sierre!

I know all my photos are sideways and I apologise, but it's something that Blogger does, I don't have my laptop tipped on it's edge, honestly.

Powder Daze

We are often asked if we are lucky with our snow when we visit the Val d'Anniviers. This is how it is most of the time, we respond. I guess it's just as well that we like skiing off piste and in powder.

An opportunity to revisit classic runs that we enjoy, which seem to change just slightly each winter. Once the Itineraries are declared open, there is a rush to ski them, which left us with chopped up powder, still fun though.

One morning we headed over to Zinal to watch some Parapente competitors in a local competition. The objective seems to be to touch down in a marked box on the snow and fly on to the next checkpoint. It's good to have some entertainment with lunch and this checkpoint was just outside a cafe.

Andy has some new skis, and was busy getting the feel of them. After a day or so, he declared that he liked them. Just as well really!

Crossing the valley to St Luc and Chandolin we decided to try an Itinerary down to one of the base lifts. The top was glorious, the bottom was icy moguls, refrozen snow, rocks and trees!



We headed up a little higher to find some softer snow!

Over in Grimentz, we kept missing meeting up with a member of the Anniviers Facebook Group. Maybe next time, we will be more organised. We did bump into a group of friends off piste, not literally, but they were skiing the same pitch, it was quite surreal!
Grimentz was starting to get busy. We got the picnic habit again!

Headed over to Zinal again, in the hope of a quiet day. We had some good snow in the Combe Durand area, and then skied down to Zinal, which was a bit mogully.

We made a tactical error in skiing down, as we saw hundreds of children queueing for the cable car. It took perhaps 20 minutes for the line to go down. Whilst waiting we bumped into another member of the Anniviers Facebook Group, quite unexpectedly, took the chance to catch up with news and then we went for a welcome coffee at the top.

Back to Grimentz to have a look at the Skier Cross and Freestyle competition. The competitors in the park were getting some serious height.

Our last day was pretty snowy, it's just possible to see the sun in this photo.



Our journey home was quite snowy too. We crossed the Jura in a snowstorm and saw our last snowplough around 30 miles from Calais. Here's the view through the windscreen just south of Reims.

Chilly

A quick getaway to the Val d'Anniviers before Christmas. It seemed really easy. Hop on a plane to Geneva, and then the train and Postbus. Of course I had not bargained on British Airways staff voting to strike, and declaring their intent to strike before I travelled back. Oh well, if I had to travel home on the train, it would be no hardship.

I had a walk around Sierre on the way up the valley and saw locals playing outdoor Bingo, accompanied by some guys on a Karaoke machine. All in -2c.




The weather and a judge then intervened in my travel plans, which was just as well. The weather in the UK was awful and lots of folks were stranded, then Eurostar suffered from the wrong type of snow and upset thousands of travellers plans. The judge conveniently (for me) declared the BA strike vote unlawful, which meant that my flight home was running again!

I skied in both Grimentz and Zinal, both hills were pretty cold. The skiers bus does not run until high season, so the journey to Zinal each day was over an hour and two buses each way. It was also not free, unlike last year.
The cold was pretty invasive! I saw -20c at mid station in Grimentz and saw a reported -29c at the top of the lift system. The loos at Bendolla were full of screaming children and anxious parents, who had failed to read the weather forecast and dress their children to suit the conditions. I have never seen so many people who looked as though they had been slapped hard.

All this cold weather, meant very little new snow, it was just too cold. I did manage to find isolated pockets of fluff, but generally off piste cover was thin and rocky, so I stayed clear.

Meeting up with some old friends was a real bonus, and I enjoyed skiing with them again, though don't feel I did my skiing justice, as I went down with a really bad cold, which sapped my energy. I also slipped over crossing the road and tweaked a knee, so I'm guessing the cold left me a bit vulnerable to injury.
The cold is now going, and I can't wait to get back out there later this month. It's rather cold again right now, but I'm confident that will pass and lots of fresh snow will follow in it's wake!

Vertical Chill - Saab Ice Wall

Ice Climbing has been on my "must do" list for a while. I grabbed the chance to take an hour's climbing on the Saab Ice Wall in London. It was huge fun, though quite tiring. I completed 2 straight ascents, then 2 with an overhang, and tried the most difficult face twice.



Although I'm in a fridge full of ice, it's hot work, and once I'd finished my session and changed, I headed into Covent Garden to act like a tourist, before meeting up for a Pastie with Tim who is a fellow member of Anniviers Ski. It's nearly Christmas, and I'm certain I've never seen a Reindeer this large! Santa's view December 24th....



Around and about in Covent Garden.

Chalk and Cheese

I'm don't really go to many music events, but last month I went to two. It's been two years since I saw Massive Attack in Birmingham and as they are releasing a new album soon, it was a good opportunity to hear some of the new material played live.

Coincidentally, I'd discovered that ZZ Top were playing just 2 venues in the UK, they had not played here for 10 years, and we'd never seen them live. We managed to get seats at Wembley Arena, oh the luxury!

Massive Attack, played Swindon Oasis, which is run by Swindon Council. It's grubby and run down, needing modernisation. I really enjoy MA, and would have enjoyed seeing the band play, but as we were all standing in a sports hall, and being a bit short, I listened to most of the event. Some of the new stuff is really excellent, and they were superb musically as ever.

Wembley Arena by contrast is big and bright and well run. There are plenty of facilities. The staff are polite and helpful, and I was blessed with an uninterrupted view of the stage from my seat, at pretty close range!

ZZ Top have been playing together for 40 years, and are pretty slick, needing few few stage props to hook the audience. I do enjoy my clothes flapping to the bass, and my ears rang until the day after. A really memorable event, with plenty of feel good music.

Their support act were Steel Panther who parodied every heavy metal cliche that ever existed, but could also play really well, though I think I'll pass on buying any of their released material, there was just too much swearing for the sake of it.

Irony

Today I learned the meaning of situational irony. I drove to see my ski bootfitter, to so he could adjust the fit on my wonderful new ski boots. I'd been experiencing some heel pain, and he was aiming to adjust the shells to remove a pressure point.

By the end of my appointment my Zipfit liners were being refunded, and I was back in the manufacturers stock liners. I was upset, so was my fitter, but hey, it's a really bad month for bills and I was now £190 up on expectations.

15 minutes later, as I'm driving home down a particularly busy dual carriageway, my battery warning light comes, on, and that is closely followed by engine failure. My car just stopped running. I managed to coast onto a slip road up ramp, then made the necessary phone calls to my assistance company, partner etc.

Recovery was fairly swift, we went straight to my local garage to drop off my car, and then I'm dropped off at home by the lorry.

The garage phone me, I need a new Alternator, and a Battery. I get a choice of Alternators, priced from £150-£700. I'm thinking £150 plus VAT sounds perfectly reasonable. I should get my car back in a couple of days.

C'est la vie.......

All Day in The Fridge

I'd decided that my skiing technique needed some attention, so booked onto a 1 day course at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead. The event was run by Chris Fecher and Will Roberts. http://skiclinic.wordpress.com/

With 2 coaches and 5 students it was a pretty full on day, with little time for a rest and nowhere to hide! I'd never considered that skiing for a day on an indoor slope could possibly be tiring. Occasionally we were gathered round for a briefing, to find out what we would be doing next. Then it was back to the draglift for some more drills!

I'm being realistic in accepting that it will take some more practice time before I can make lasting changes to my technique, but I intend to get some more slope time before I head for the hills.

I have recently purchased some new ski boots. I was a little anxious about wearing them for a whole day, whilst the liners were settlling. I was pleasantly surprised that they were pretty comfortable. It's around 20 years since I've worn Salomon boots, and typing that makes me feel old!


It was pretty apparent that comfy though they were, I was a bit unbalanced. I felt as though I was skiing on the two inner edges. So I'd booked to have Skier Alignment undertaken by Andi McCann of Alpine McCannix, http://www.mccannix.com/2009.htm

It would have been ideal to have me and the boots balanced up before the Course. The best I could achieve was 3 days afterwards. I met up with Andi and he worked pretty hard to get me sorted out, the work took around 3 hours. The soles of my boots have been planed, and a protective sole plate has been fitted, internal heel lifts have been added, and heaps more technical stuff !

My new boots now look just a little different....


I can't wait to try them out!

I Am Not A Number

While we were in Wales, we took the opportunity to go and visit the village of Portmeirion, which was the setting for the TV series The Prisoner back in the 1960's. The series starred Patrick McGoohan and there is still a cult following for the programme.

The village was designed by architect Clough Williams-Ellis, with rescued architectural follies, which makes for a real jumble of styles. It's a private village, but is open to the public for a fee.

We were both surprised at how compact the village is, but because it's a mix of styles, there is much to catch the eye, and some of the colour schemes are pretty vibrant.







Some statues looked quite ordinary, until you took a second (or even a third glance). This one looks like quite a straightforward lion statue, until you look at what the lion has under it's foot!




It's a pretty decent way to spend a couple of hours on an overcast afternoon, and we were happy to get in for half price as it was after 3.30pm!

Be seeing you......