I just spent the last 4 days ski touring with Peter and Mike. Originally the idea was to prepare for an ascent of the Piz Buin in April by doing some work with crampons and ice axes. In the event, we had quite a bit of snow, so apart from a short section of ice on a footpath in Les Contamines, the pointy things stayed firmly in rucksacks.

We had a couple of days in Les Contamines when the weather in Chamonix was a bit too cloudy to do the kind of tours we were interested in. Even in Contamines, I had to get the compass and map out a few times. It was almost like being back in Scotland the previous week (!), though not as windy or wet!

The Thursday and Friday were based in the Western Bernese Oberland, where on Friday we skied down a totally deserted valley for a vertical interval of 1500m. I had (partially) been joking with Peter that skiing or skinning in someone else's tracks is somehow a less pure experience, and disturbs my "Zen feeling" in the mountains. However, this season I seem to have managed to have quite a few wilderness experiences with nobody else around, something that is very special. It means that I make decisions based 100% on the mountains and not infuenced by what anyone else is doing.

PLUS we had powder every single day :)

Having just spent a week based out of the Stronlossit Hotel in Roybridge, I can once again confirm that Scottish winter mountaineering is the toughest work I do as a guide. For the last 7 years, I've climbed with Darren here in the same week, more often than not in perfect weather with good to fantastic conditions. This year was the payback: two severe weather warnings in a week for gales with 100mph winds, and global warming restricting ice formation to the final few hundred feet of Ben Nevis. Despite all that, we had a very productive time, with Smiths Route on Gardyloo being the highlight of the week. Nevertheless, it required some lateral thinking and a flexible approach to get the best results.

One thing that struck me while we were fighting our way down the Carn Mor Dearg arete was that, far from being outrageously bad, this was just normal for Scotland - high winds, poor visibility -though it would be considered poor to Armageddonesque in the Alps. It just goes to show that, if you can climb well in Scotland in winter, you can climb well anywhere!

PS: Thanks for the photo of character building conditions on Fiacall Couloir, Darren:

While the crowds seethed in Chamonix and the queues on the Midi arete got longer, I've just been away for the week in Switzerland. We had fresh tracks every day , with some sublime powder despite it not having snowed for a week. We saw chamois just a couple of hundred meters away from a piste, and put up a brace of blackcock just meters away on one memorable off piste run. The most common comment from our group is that they were amazed by the lack of people, despite it being a UK half term week and also for the cantons of Vaud and nearby Geneva. On many runs we were totally alone!

I'm not going to say exactly where we went, as that would spoil it all for next year, but if you're smart you can get an idea by checking out my Calendar. Or you can test your knowledge of the alps by trying to recognise the photo to the right. Answers to me on a postcard (or a contact email!).

It just goes to show that, with a bit of intiative, you can get a wilderness skiing experience with no skinning or helicopters required!

I wouldn't normally post just a snapshot from my webcam, but this mornings sunrise over the Midi is one of the best images I've seen from it, along with some awesome sunsets in the summer when the whole face glows red and orange.

It makes you realise once again that Chamonix really is an amazing place to live, and to never take this place or the way of life that goes with it for granted.

This time last year, with very little snow in the Alps, the UK media was full of reports of global warming, the end of skiing as we know it, and general doom and gloom. Something MUST be done…

Just 12 months later, with a major dump just a couple of weeks before Christmas, and then some minor top-ups, all of a sudden the heat is off and we don’t have to worry any more, right?

It’s true that snow cover is average for the time of year, but personal observation is that it’s really warm. Yesterday, on the 26th January, the freezing level rose to 3000m! To put this into perspective, I was chatting with a Swiss guide at this time last year during that “temporary” crisis period, and he was saying that, when he started guiding 20 years ago, they wouldn’t go on mixed routes in the summer if the freezing level rose above 3000m.

To underscore the speed of this change, I came across one of my earliest photos, taken in 1968, of my two brothers below the Bossons glacier in the Chamonix Valley. Out of curiosity, I went back to try and duplicate the photo and get an idea of the glacial recession in my lifetime so far. To see this photo in full size, click here.

As you can see, the results are pretty impressive. To put some scale on it, the height interval of glacier you can see is about 1500m and the glacier is about 1 km across at its widest. it has shrunk about 150m in width on both sides, and this in just 40 years.

So it’s pretty clear that glacial recession, and therefore global warming, is a reality. Opinion is divided as to whether this is due to human activities or just part of the natural cycle. To help you make up your mind, I would strongly recommend a viewing of An Inconvenient Truth. Even among my guiding clients, there are some who don’t really believe in global warming, and there are some who criticise me for even offering heli-skiing due to its high carbon footprint.

I’m lucky enough to live and work in a beautiful natural environment, yet that very activity is arguably damaging. So I try to live in as sensible a way as possible. I hope, for the sake of mountains and mountaineering, that you do too.

The (in)famous arete, equipped with a rope throughout the winter.

The local paper here in Chamonix, the Dauphiné, announced yesterday that the (in)famous arête at the start of the Vallée Blanche will be equipped with a rope throughout the winter. This crest of snow, with a 1500m drop to Chamonix on the left and a 200m drop to the glacier on the right, has traditionally been protected by a rope at the decision of a group consisting of the lift company, guides and rescue services. In early season when the VB was considered to be too crevassed, the sharp crest with its drops and no rope would act as a natural deterrent to inexperienced piste skiers, up there under the impression that the VB is a piste, despite all the warning notices to the contrary.

When the rope is in place, the VB is accessible to anyone with a head for heights, even if they have no mountain experience at all. The VB is a potentially dangerous glacial ski, and every year skiers fall into crevasses and die, many of their bodies never reappearing. At least two of my guiding colleagues have been down slots but got out due to having ropes, not only with them but also with their co-skiers, and the knowledge of how to use them.

To underline the danger, a young Lithuanian disappeared on Friday, having been warned repeatedly of the risks by lift staff. See the Piste Hors site for further details.

So… should the arête be equipped all year, thus making the VB more accessible to the public, or should there be some sort of control?

The crevassses, even on the "standard" variant should not be underestimated.

My feeling is that the arête acted as a natural filter, and even so in high season, I frequently see skiers on the VB who clearly have no idea of the risk they are undertaking. It can look benign, but you have only to look at the photos of the VB in sparse conditions to see the quantity and size of the slots.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

The winter is going well - a big snowfall before Christmas has put down a good base, and from that time until today, the weather has essentially been very stable, consolidating the snowpack in many areas. Compared to last year the coverage is excellent, with sking possible to valley level in most resorts around the Chamonix area.

However, there are some pockets of surface hoar lurking out there and we have 30 to 50 cm of fresh on a strong westerly wind due in the next couple of days. Stand by for some rhino action, though luckily Cham is fairly quiet at the moment.

December can be a quiet time, so it's time for some training, renewing the first aid ticket along with 10 other Chamonix based guides. All very sociable, lots of shared stories and black humour on what's more a seminar than a course, well chaired by Nick Banks of Rescue and Emergency Care. Let's hope we have to use the skills as little as possible for the next 3 years....