Tag Archives: Alps

Christmas skiing in the Swiss Alps

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A couple of days before Christmas, my younger son invited me to join him for a day skiing in the Swiss Alps.  Champéry lies in a side valley of the Rhone valley under the Dents du Midi (“Teeth of Noon”) mountain range. I’d last skied there years ago (see earlier post). At less than a day’s notice, I rang the hotel he was staying at and booked a room for the night. The hotels and the ski slopes were half empty because of the Covid travel bans, particularly for the many British who had planned ski holidays in Switzerland and nearby France.

Les Dents du Midi (Teeth of the Noon)
My son at around 2000 m with the Dents du Midi behind him.
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New Year skiing in the Swiss Alps

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Switzerland has kept its ski resorts open while all neighbouring countries closed. Hardly surprising that 4,200 British skiers turned up for the Christmas-New Year period just after the new faster spreading covid-19 virus took British new cases through the roof at exponential speed. The Swiss then imposed a retrospective quarantine on the British visitors after they arrived, and almost all of them snuck out during the night and left. Left a lot of anti-British feeling behind.

I and my boys are of like mind that it would be madness to go to one of the major resorts like Verbier, where many British go. Likely the people there are now incubating new infections. But my neighbours packed their car and head up to Verbier today, confident the virus left with the British. I’ve spent a number of New Years at Verbier, particularly back in the noughties (2000-2009) during part of which I rented a studio apartment in Verbier so I could go up for weekends and longer holidays whenever I wanted. Here are some photos from those days.

Two parapenters fly above the mountains at Verbier

View from the top of Mont Fort (3330 m). The three peaks on the horizon from l.to.r are Dent Blanche (4356 m), Matterhorn (4478 m in niddle) and Dent d’Hérens (4171 m)

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Christmas skiing in the Swiss Alps

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Switzerland has angered neighboring countries by keeping the ski slopes open this winter, despite the risks associated with skiing and the coronavirus pandemic. However, national and cantonal restrictions apply, and Les Portes du Soleil where the boys and I have often skied has set a quota for the numbers of skiers allowed on the slopes. I’ve decided to avoid the ski resorts this winter, at least until the covid situation improves or we have been vaccinated.

Its snowing here on Christmas Day in Geneva, though not quite enough to ski on. I’ve  been skiing around the Christmas-New Year period quite a few of the years I’ve been in Geneva. Here are a few photos from two Christmas’s spent at Arosa in northeast Switzerland in 2001, 2005 and 2007. Good times.

Below left: looking down the Hörnli Express to the village of Arosa. Right: Hörnli 2511m.
 

 

 

 

Enjoying the winter sun on the piste in December 2001

Lamp post in the forest near our hotel. I think I must have gone out through the wardrobe.

View from the summit of Weisshorn (2653 m).

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Skiing in the French Alps

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I have just spent a week skiing in the French Alps with my younger son. We stayed in a chalet above the village of Les Gets in Les Portes du Soleil ski doman (the Gates of the Sun). Normally the snow is down to the village, but this February is the warmest I have experienced since I have lived in Geneva and the snow did not extend much lower than our chalet. Fortunately it snowed quite a bit after we arrived, and there was plenty of fresh powder for skiing. And enough to ski back to our chalet at the end of the day.

View from our chalet

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Fresh powder snow at Verbier

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Its starting to turn cold in Geneva, and my thoughts turn towards skiing in the coming winter. I was cleaning up my photo library the other day, and came across some photos from January 2003 of skiing in deep fresh powder snow at Verbier in the Swiss Alps. Verbier is a bit under two hours drive from Geneva and is a renowned ski resort with spectacular scenery and skiing, with many difficult “black” pistes, and extensive off-piste skiing.  In the first few years I was in Geneva, Verbier was my regular ski destination, and for a couple of years I rented a small studio apartment there so I could go up for weekends and longer periods when possible. The following photos were all taken in the main ski domain around Atelas (2727 m), La Chaux (2260 m), Fontanet (2485 m), Col des Gentianes (2950 m).

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A sunny day skiing at Verbier

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After the day of reasonably heavy snow in Geneva last week, I decided to head up to Verbier to take advantage of the new snow. Verbier is a bit under two hours drive from Geneva and has spectacular scenery and skiing.  In the first few years I was in Geneva, Verbier was my regular ski destination, and for a couple of years I rented a small studio apartment there so I could go up for weekends and longer periods when possible.

From Lausanne onwards, the ground in the Rhone Valley was completely covered in snow, and the trees and mountains were all dusted with fresh powder. I parked in the valley below Verbier and caught the cable car up past Verbier to the mid-level pistes.

Heading up in the cable car

Verbier is part of the “Four Valleys” (“4 Vallées”) ski area, which is the biggest ski domain in Switzerland with extensive off-piste and back country routes.

Grand Combin (4314 m)

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Skiing from Switzerland to France and back

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I have recently been cleaning up old external drives that I’ve used over the years for backups and found a folder of photographs from a 2003 ski trip to Champèry. Champéry lies in a side valley of the Rhone valley under the Dents du Midi (“Teeth of Midday”) mountain range. Some of the photos really capture the beauty of skiing in this region, which is part of the Portes du Soleil (The Doors of the Sun). So I decided to put them up in this post. The Portes du Soleil is one of Europe’s two largest ski areas, around 1000 square kilometres, with 13 interconnected ski resorts and around 650 km of marked pistes, and includes Les Gets where we skied in February this year.

Looking down towards Champéry lying under the Dents du Midi on the other side of the valley

Continuing to head upwards from where the above photo was taken will bring you to the ridgeline which marks the Swiss border with France. Later in the day I skied down the other side into France and ended up in the Morzine valley, where I caught a chairlift back up to the top.

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Skiing in the French Alps

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Schools in Geneva have a one-week mid-term break in February, and the ski slopes are normally crowded. I took my boys for a week skiing in the French Alps at Les Gets, which is a little over 60 kilometres from Geneva, in the direction of Chamonix. The slopes were even more crowded as usual, as it was also the British mid-term break, and Les Gets is a popular destination.

Looking towards Mont Blanc from Mont Chéry.

The village of Les Gets, visible in the valley below my younger son in the photo above, is relatively low at 1,170m above sea level, and the highest points accessible on ski are at around 2000 m. The photo above was taken near the summit of Mont Chéry at around 1,800 m. In the distance to the south-east Mont Blanc (4,810 m) is visible on the horizon. I stood on its summit in 2010 (Mont Blanc), 3000 metres higher than where I and my son are now standing. Below is another photo taken using the zoom lens.

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Glacial Erratic Blocks in the Rhone Valley

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Continuing our glacial explorations (see also The-pyramids-of-euseigne), we visited a number of enormous glacial erratic blocks in the wooded slopes above the town of Monthey in the Rhone Valley. These blocks played a pivotal role in the realization that there had been great Ice Ages in the past. There are eight blocks along a trail about 5km long between Monthey and Collombey. ( MT_Blocs_Erratiques_Web.pdf). The first and largest of these blocks, “La Pierre des Marmettes”, is now in the middle of the parking lot of the Monthey Hospital.

La Pierre des Marmettes

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The Pyramids of Euseigne

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The Pyramids of Euseigne are one of the more bizarre geological features created by the last ice age. They are in the Val d’Hérens, one of the southern side valleys off the Rhône valley of Switzerland. The entire Rhone valley and its side valleys were under glaciers at the height of the last ice age around 23,000 years ago. An old university friend who is a geologist visited Switzerland at the beginning of the year and invited me to join him for an exploration of some of the landscape features created by the glaciers of the last ice age.

In the photo below, my friend is looking south towards the junction of the Val d’Hérens and Val d’Hérémence where two glaciers met and continued down towards us. The pyramids are located on the ridge separating the two valleys, We are standing on the remnants of a glacial lake delta formed by the damming of the melt waters of the joined glaciers. The glaciers retreated about 11,000 years ago when humans expanded north back into Northern Europe and Britain again.

The Pyramids are the remnants of a ground moraine created from finely ground silt and sand with embedded larger boulders. Some of the boulders protected the underlying compacted silt from erosion, forming protective caps.

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