Thursday 30 March 2017

Vallee Blanche

We went home for the weekend which explains why no blog.  John wanted to see the  Head of the River Race which involves 420 crews rowing from Chiswick to Putney.  Sadly, it was cancelled because of high winds.
Anyway, we are back in Megeve to lovely sunny weather and deserted pistes.  Today we took all the staff, except for Tom (whose girl friend arrived today) and Rory and Corrie (broken collarbones) to Chamonix to ski the Vallee Blanche.  It was one of those days.  Leaving our apartment, we got into the lift I asked John if he had got his boots.   We got to the RP when he said he'd forgotten both his phones.  Surprisingly, I had mine and it was switched on.
We were incredibly lucky as Alex Perinet (our favourite mountain guide) was free and he brought his friend, Thiery, who guided us last year.  So, we had two excellent guides.  Often the ridge is windy and cold, but there was no wind and we all ended up stripping off at the bottom of it.  Then we split into two groups.   We went with Alex and skied the Petit Envers, which was steep and exciting with lots of crevasses to avoid.  We joined up with the other group just before the path to the refuge, and skied together to our patch of stones for lunch.
The snow was mixed but lower down Alex found us some spring snow, which was great. I think the worst part is climbing up the stairs to the railway.  Gary, bless him, carried my skis.  Every year I do it I wonder if I can face that climb up the following year.  It was a great day and thank you to all our team this year.

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