Porridge
Porridge: it's a fine Scottish insititution. Oats, water and salt, boiled up for a bit, then add some milk or cream and if you're feeling really indulgent, a bit of golden syrup. It's a little known gossip "fact" that the current president of the British Mountain Guides has a large bowl of it every morning before heading out on the hill, thus maintaining his limitless good humour in the face of BMG politics.
However, take that same lovely porridge, fill a bath full of it, allow to cool to stiffen and congeal slightly and then stand in it with ski boots on, and you may have less than the usual turning capability. Even worse, take several million bath fulls and spread them liberally between the Prafleuri and the Dix huts, allow to cool for a few days so a crust develops in random areas which will maybe (just maybe) support your weight on 3 out of 4 steps. You get convinced that your lower legs will be a porridge-free zone, and then... splunch. You're up to your knees in oaty gloop.
To top it all, then incline the slope by just below 30 degrees and place a gorge full of foaming hydroelectric outflow below it, and that gets you the Pas de Chat section of that day. Is it any wonder we took our skis off and walked up the grass at the side of it?
It's just as well that the tour over the Pigne the next day gave us perfect powder with no one else around. You win some you, you lose some or, as I often say to folk complaining about the quality of the snow, if you want to meet the handsome prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.
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