Holiday in Argentière

Friends Simone and David with their 4 children and some other friends took a giant luxury chalet in Argentière (which is the village at the bottom of the Grands Montets ski area - up the valley from Chamonix) for the easter week. We have been skiing with them several times but have failed to take any photos.

We went round there for dinner on Thursday night and spent some time in the hot tub with snow pouring down on our heads. Unfortunately (or probably fortunately) there is no photo of this either.

We then stayed the night with Rob and Sarah as they live in Argentière and the night bus back to Chamonix stopped running a few weeks ago. We didn't get a photo of this either.

However we did get a photo of the view from the front of their apartment in the morning

View down the valley from Argentière

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

The weather seems to have decided to finish the season with a flourish and it has been snowing pretty much every night recently. The slopes have been very quiet since easter, so we have been getting plenty of lovely fresh snow.
Typically we don't get very many photos of skiing in powder because we are too excited and busy skiing it before someone else does, but we have made a special effort recently (plus it has lasted long enough for us to have a few runs and then get the photos)

Doug getting fresh tracks in the Grands Montets area

Winter has returned

After weeks of early spring in Chamonix it has been snowing a lot.
A few days ago I posted summery shot of the view from our window.
This is what it looks like now. Much better!!

'Winter' view from the flat in April

Two seasons in one day

We got up early to go skiing this morning because it was raining in the valley yesteday evening and we hoped that meant snow higher up. It seems it did. It was still snowing when we got up there this morning and kept at it most the day. The visability came and went (or rather went and went more) which did make some of the skiing a tad tricky - but good never the less.

Winter

Soon after we got home it turned to lovely and sunny and all the birds were tweeting away, spring like, on the bird feeder

Summer (or spring anyway)

Something other than skiing

From the blog it probably seems like we do nothing but bake things and ski. This is not too far from the truth, but we do actually do some other boring things like shopping, laundry and cleaning - plus what seems like a lot of time spent learning French. We are having lessons once a week with Françoise who is very patient and lovely. Should you need French lessons in Chamonix I would recommend her. website.

We went for a walk today. The theory was that it was going to give our legs a rest as they were getting a bit knackered from skiing every day. However we went a bit futher and higher than we really intended and ended up with legs more tired than ever.

It was a lovely walk though with awsome views. It is hard to get bored of Mont Blanc.

Mont Blanc

You can see from this photo that there was a lot more snow this year than there has been for many decades, and the spring avalanches minced some sizable trees. We also saw the remains of a mountain goat that we assume was caught in the avalanche (not very photogenic)

Crossing an avalanche

The snow came!!

It has been spring for many weeks in Chamonix - which is lovely and warm and sunny with nice spring snow to ski, but we have been worrying it will all melt before we leave in May.
It snowed some last night so we rushed out this morning at the crack of dawn (or 8.30 am) to make the most of it.

Ski God

Our tracks

Like the new trousers?

Bottling the beer

This is always a bit of an undertaking as it is important (as with the original brewing) that everything is sterile. We brew 24 litres at a time so that is something over 30 bottles to fill (some of the beer is wasted as the bottom bit is too full of yeast).
We use a thing called 'The little bottler' which is invaluable for getting the beer out the barrel in to the bottles with minimum spillage and without oxidising the beer (which is bad apparently). You can see it here attached to the tap on the barrel

Filling bottles

Some of our bottles have swing tops and so are easy to close, others need caps adding using the capper (yes pyjamas are the accepted stylish thing to wear for beer brewing)

Capping bottles