We’ve had three International Mountain Leader aspirants here this week, Cormac, Martin and Alan with his wife Helen (who are frequent visitors). So we’ve been out and about sampling some of the range of snowshoeing we’ve got in this region. At the start of the week, the col de La Croix near Les Diablerets provided some great snow and a varied route through high pasture and forest tracks. We tried a few minor variations from the route I normally take and explored a couple of forest sections that worked well. We spent a little time looking at the snowpack finding it was pretty stable at those heights and aspects with the history of the sporadic snowfall of this winter visible in the snow profile we dug.
We then headed up the Grand St Bernard to visit the historic hospice with a quick tour inside the hospice itself to see the chapel and took tea with the monks.
We had an oddly quiet day on Monts Chevreuils, we were the only people on the mountain and the only people who made it to the refuge for lunch. It was a bit of an overcast day but fresh snow had covered most previous tracks so it was a bit odd to have the exclusive use of the mountain.
We also made it Arnesee / Walighürli, Feutersoey over in canton Berne. It’s mostly a north facing route so it’s holding the snow very well. It’s not somewhere I often go with people but with International Mountain Leader aspirants it was an ideal opportunity to see how a new route would work. I’ve taken people to the lake before and then circled it, usually high up, before descending the valley. The problem with that is that the return road is exposed to some avalanche risk on a warming afternoon although, in practice, the slopes are steep enough that they purge quite quickly and the hazard is eliminated. Nevertheless, a route through the various farms looked good but paths and track segments needed linking with some more “freestyle” sections through meadows and forest. And, it worked well, probably one of the longer routes we’d do with more ascent but, in my opinion, quite excellent. The reliable snow on those slopes will make this a good option for our guests!
We had a reasonable score for wildlife, a few foxes out daytime hunting which I suspect were vixens who are producing litters around now along with some chamois and squirrels. We found plenty of tracks in the snow and identified foxes, squirrels, chamois and hares from their distinctive trails.
And, on Thursday we took a our regular nighttime trip on snowshoes to the Restuarant Les Fers above Leysin for fondue.
Thanks to Cormac, Martin, Alan and Helen for a great week!
