35cm of snow overnight on Monday means only one thing: down to St Gervais for a spot of powder action. Accompanied by Bruce from South Africa, we had it large all day. No surprise to see loads of my colleagues there too.

Having had a dry January with no appreciable snow since Christmas, this latest addition to the snow pack is very welcome before the school holidays in February.

Just back from 2 days away in Gressoney. Alagna had 4 meters of snow at Xmas, and the coverage is still fantastic. 2 days with Tim, Sarah, Laura and Jeremy based at the Gabiet hut, following on from 2 days of intro to touring in the Chamonix area.

The Italian experience is ALWAYS worth the effort - great food and great skiing too. Even with poor visibility and high winds on both days, we still had an awesome time with some great scenery, great snow and sublime food at the Gabiet hut. Molto Grazie a tutti!

Following on from the AGM and Annual Dinner, the FIRST time ever for this event to be held outside of the UK, 12 slightly worse for wear guides gathered at the Grands Montets for 2 days of Continuous Professional Development training. The CPD is a requirement to retain the qualification, but since many of us opt to take a ski course , it's hardly a chore.

Splitting into 2 groups, we covered 3 subjects over the 2 days of training. The newly elected Training Officer, Terry Ralphs, hosted a workshop on Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue. In early season, this is a subject never far from the back of our minds, and the resulting discussions and technical sessions provided many different approaches to this important issue. Ski guiding in particular is a very solitary profession, so an opportunity to share techniques is always welcome. Here we see Steve setting up a crossed ski belay while Dave and Terry look on.

On the second day, we were given an excellent presentation and training session on avalanche transceivers by Louis Piguet, an IFMGA Guide from Leysin in nearby Switzerland, who is also the after sales service rep for Mammut. Louis gave us an excellent overview on transceivers in general and then concentrated on the benefits of the Mammut Pulse, which many of us use. Having an expert there enabled us to get the most out of this powerful device.

But the highlight of the training was of course the skiing. Alison Culshaw of the British Alpine Ski School in Chamonix gave 2 half day sessions for the 2 groups of guides. In spite of shocking visibility, especially on day 2, we all felt we got a massive amount out of this training, delivered in a lively style by Alison, a former member of the Scottish ski team. Loads of subtle tricks and techniques both for our own skiing and the coaching of clients off piste, looking at edging and pressure especially. We think we have a reasonable handle on these basic elements, and then we get shown a whole new dimension. Great stuff...

So this season we'll all be skiing gods - thanks Alison!

It's the snowiest winter for decades, according to the locals. Bring it on!

On the way back from Colorado to Chamonix, I stopped off at Lowe Alpine UK for a meeting with the team there to chat through the latest in product development.

Quite often, folk will ask me if I’m sponsored by Lowe Alpine; to be honest that depends on your interpretation of “sponsored”. To me, being sponsored implies being paid to wear the kit with very little other responsibilities, and sometimes just a matter of displaying the logo of the sponsor.

My relationship with Lowe Alpine is very different to that. It started in the 90’s when I was presenting the BMC Winter Lecture Series, with the event being supported by Lowe Alpine. At the end of the first series, Martyn Hurn (then marketing manager) gave me a jacket. A couple of months later, I sent him a report on its performance , and he sent me another jacket and a pack, and so it went on.

Fifteen years later, I am now a technical consultant for Lowe Alpine – it’s a job, reporting on performance of kit, advising on designs, and above all subjecting kit to wear tests in an accelerated time scale, using and abusing it beyond all that’s reasonable to see how it stands up.

The clothing team is based at Lowe Alpine International in Italy, and I liaise with Claudio and his team by email on a regular basis. The pack team is still in Kendal, now headed up by Matryn Hurn, and I get to see them to discuss development when I’m over there for the Kendal Mountain Festival. Together with the UK sales team , Andy Cave and I looked at the clothing range for Fall Winter 2009/2010 as well.

So in reality it’s a job, contributing to product development rather than being a sponsored hero.

GOOD NEWS!

It's thumping with snow at valley level here, and my TWO new pairs of skis are sitting in the cellar waiting for the right moment. The grapevine says 1 meter at 1500m, but even if that's a tourist forecast, 50cm at this time of year will certainly be a very good start.

BRING ON WINTER!!!

The pattern of last year is now repeating, thanks to the snowfall reported in the last blog post followed by a couple of freeze thaw cycles and now settled weather for a few days.

The Droites and the Jorasses are in very good condition indeed, with recent ascents of the Shroud on the Jorasses and the North face of the Matterhorn being reported.

October is a wicked month for alpinism and climbing generally în Chamonix. Check it out some time! Or maybe just leave the Guides to enjoy their holidays....

Last year, October was a great month for alpinism with steady settled weather right the way through. The Jorasses in particular got a hammering as folk ran up things like the McIntyre Colton.

I was big walling in the States last year so missed all the fun. I was really looking forward to staying at home, saving some carbon and doing some Alpinism, but winter has arrived early! We have 10cm of fresh here at 1140m, so winter has most definitely arrived. The weather lore experts here all predict a cold spell from now on - lots of myrtilles this autumn, the size of the potatoes in Lavancher (seriously!) - whether it's wishful thinking or based on aeons of tradition, we can all start to get excited about the ski season.

I’ve just finished off the summer with an ascent of Mont Blanc by the Gouter route, and then a quick trip up the Gran Paradiso. Mont Blanc is often climbed by folk with woefully inadequate kit, poor acclimatisation and rope techniques that range from the slightly unconventional to the downright dangerous. Check out this outrageous piece of video footage on youtube in the Grand Couloir! In previous years the Gran Paradiso has been mercifully free of this kind of behaviour, but clearly the habit is spreading.

One tries to avoid stereotyping or generalisations, but empirical observation tells me that much of this incompetence comes from climbers from the eastern bloc, notably Poland and the Czech Republic.

In July I was descending the north face of the Mont Blanc du Tacul at about 3 in the afternoon. It had been a long day on the traverse to Mont Blanc, and I was aware of feeling that we were a bit late to be descending. On the way down, we met a couple with HUGE sack, plodding painfully slowly up. It didn’t look like fun. “We are from Czech Republic. How far to the Col Maudit?” They were planning to camp up there. The next morning the chopper came in and lifted 2 folk off. Poor acclimatisation? Sacks too heavy? Poor timing?

In mid August I was on the Gouter route, and we came across a Polish man above the Gouter with crampons but no ice axe, no harness and no rope. It was quite a windy day and I was more worried about him being blown off the summit ridge than going down a slot, though the Dome de Gouter does have a few sizeable holes. We saw him on the summit later, either oblivious of or ignoring the risks.

The final straw that prompted me to blog this was an incident on the Gran Paradiso in late August. We were followed up the dry part of the glacier by a young lad, no ice axe, no harness, no rope, and this time with just instep crampons tied on with very old canvas straps. As we arrived at the more crevassed part of the route from the Chabod hut, the snow coverage was enough to warrant putting the rope on. Once again I spoke to the lad, found out he was Polish, and that at just 18 years old he was planning to follow people to the top.

After my lecture, he hesitated for 10 minutes, then followed the next team across fragile bridges above yawning crevasses that I’d been nervous on WITH a rope.

What is it with these people? Do they think we wear harnesses and ropes just to look good? Admittedly when I was a young alpinist, I did some pretty stupid things along these lines, but that’s because no-one had told me. When someone tells you there are crevasses, and then you see them with your own eyes, then it ceases to be ignorance of the risk and becomes stubborn stupidity. Then again, is it just Darwinian selection going on?

The best thing would be if the mountaineering associations in the eastern bloc could promote safety and good practice, like the excellent safety lectures organised by the BMC in England and Wales.

Think I'll get off my soapbox now and have a beer.....