Anyone watching the snow reports over the last week will have seen the Easter bunny bringing a huge dump right across the Alps. I've been getting emails from clients as far afield as St Moritz and Val d'Isere on what a fantastic time they've had.

Yesterday in St Gervais was breathtaking, literally. On several occasions the depth of the powder required snorkels! I was going to go ski there for myself, but a call from Robert and Gillian meant I could go there and enjoy the experience with them, along with Henry and James. The pictures say it all.......

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 :)

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!