Off Piste Introduction 2011

A tough week last week for this winter's first Off Piste Introduction week. Wildly varying temperatures, and a mnix of snow & rain in the week preceding the course had left large quantities of crust off the beaten track... At the very least this provided 'educational' snow for everyone to test themselves out on!

As always though there was some good snow to be found, and a trip into Les Avals revealed not only some good spring snow, but some soft powder very low down (inbetween quite a bit of crust!). Peter, Andy & Sarah enjoy the view:



Lesley nearing the Merlet shoulder, great views behind:



Lunch with a view above St Martin. Some firmer 'spring' snow on this side:



A trip from Olympic down to St Martin gave some reasonable skiing on firm refrozen spring snow, a bit rattley, but better than crust!:



Finally a flurry of snow on the Thursday afternoon turned into the jackpot of the week, with a descent from la Masse into Les Encombres on 10-15cm of good powder on a reasonable base!

Peter testing out his Flyswatters:



Andy shreds the soft stuff:



More powder anyone?:



Plenty of space for fresh tracks when you are first in:



800m of good powder to the valley bottom:



On the way out to Chatelard, for a great lunch at the Auberge Chantacoucou:



Well done to all the team for coping with the challenging conditions! Great to see everyone's skiing coming on throught the week... here's to next year!