Spring Is Bouncing Around

Hi everybody, and welcome to the latest edition in my blog series. The weeks are flying by, and we have definitely entered into what is the favourite time of ski season for many people, Spring. The days are becoming longer, in fact the clocks 'spring' forward this coming weekend here in France as well as the UK. But you see, just like everywhere else, Spring is a very strange season up here in the alps. By the way, as ever on this blog page, I have taken all of these photos in the last week.

I guess everyone knows that life in the mountains is an adventure, the weather can turn quite quickly. Sometimes we have bright sunshine, then suddenly we are in the clouds. Sometimes it's chilly (even through the whole day), other times it's mild. It can snow, and we've had loads the last week. It can also rain, annoyingly we've also had loads of this last week as well. I hope you don't mind me not taking photos of the rain, it's not a pretty sight.

Sometimes the pistes soften during the day in the sun, and then freeze nicely at night ready for the next morning. Other times mild temperatures soften the lower pistes, and not the top part of the mountain. Perhaps north facing pistes are less affected by the sun than other aspects. Maybe the lower pistes don't freeze overnight, which means the snow is soft right from the start of the next day.

Sometimes the snow conditions and weather is sub-optimal in Spring, and other times all the stars align and the conditions are a skiers dream. This is what we experienced for a couple of days last week with gorgeous sunshine and amazing snow both on and off-piste........

Someone I spoke to yesterday automatically assumed I went powder skiing in these conditions. And I guess you could say that I did. Granted, Rachel and Nick who I skied with many times last week, wouldn't want to ski deep powder snow off-piste. But what we did do was make the best of the conditions whilst they were building their confidence on the green slopes. The snow felt amazing, and put a smile on our faces. It was worth waiting out the dodgy weather for these precious moments.

In a nutshell, the weather and snow conditions are bouncing around all over the place at the moment, and boy are these bounces from one extreme to the other. But that's life in the mountains, and we wouldn't have it any other way. We are racing towards the early Easter break soon, and what's the forecast for the next week or so? I'll let you guess that, because it's Spring, which means lots of variety. As always...... Live With Passion. Martin