The Swiss Pudding Testers on Tour

After a fairly heroic yomp to the Cabane Becs des Bossons, it seemed sensible to have an easier day taking in the sights above St Luc. We drove to Chandolin and took the Tsape chairlift, then set off for St Luc which was round the ridge. It's a fairly level walk giving good opportunities for taking photos.

Looking up towards the Moiry branch of the Anniviers. Becs des Bossons is the peak far right.

Looking right across the Rhone Valley to the Plein Morte Glacier above Crans Montana.

This is the top of Cret du Midi in Vercorin, another Anniviers ski station which is open in summer.

After an hour or so, we were feeling the need for Tarte au Myrtille, so consulted the nearest signpost and headed for the Cabane Bella Tola.

It's a very pleasant venue, and I was eyeing up the potential of spending the afternoon in a deckchair. They even have a portable swimming pool set up. The Tarte was well up to expectations, and fully refreshed we set off to find a pleasant place for a picnic. With some surprise we found a purpose built picnic table with roof. Okay, it seemed to have been built for tall people, but it was a lovely spot, on a beautiful sunny day.

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.

Hiking the Rostigraben

Starting from Chandolin we took the Tsape chairlift up, which was not without a little drama, as the lift operator could not work the ticket machine. The chair only runs for 30 minutes every couple of hours and time was getting on, but he finally managed to issue a ticket.

We walked over to see the Illsee barrage, which is quite spectacular then passed Lac Noir, then carried on up the Schwarzhorn. The path is marked as difficult on the route, though the new Swiss Hiking grades only mark it a T2 Mountain Hike. It's certainly a hands on walk at times, with good eyesight needed to spot the marker paint.



After a walk around on the top, we had lunch at 2790m with our feet dangling into German speaking Switzerland and looking down on the lakes of Oberer and Unterer Meretschisee.
Andy had a little vertigo, and felt drawn to the edge, which was not good.

On the way back, we stopped at the Tsape restaurant, which has recently been demolished and rehoused in a tent behind the chairlift station.

"Have you ever visited a Harvester"...

We hiked down the piste back to the car park, as it was the most direct route. It's surprising how steep ski pistes are! The day 's height gain after the chair lift was 315m. Descent was 860 metres. It felt like more!

Big Snow

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.