Winter is here, its official!

These days are here!

Well we sledded the girls to school this morning, the van is stuck/parked at the bottom of the hill and winter chaos reigns!

It always takes a couple of days for us to make the full transition from Autumn to Winter. All those little winter preparation jobs you've been putting off suddenly need doing all at once and with all the snow lying around become twice as difficult. Anything left out in the garden is now gone until the spring, out of sight out of mind, well at least everything looks tidy again out there with its new blanket of winter whiteness and you need to search out all those snow shovels, car scrapers and essential winter items that you'd forgotten all about. Thankfully it snowed a couple of weeks ago so we had a warning shot and most things were pretty much ready to go.

Jeff, our brochure cover star the last couple of years, called yesterday (as he's out here in Chamonix for early December) to see if he should pack his mountain bike. Yesterday I said, maybe get it ready and see nearer the time, this morning I had to tell him to put it away, the snow is here and it dumping down. I'm setting my bike up on the indoor trainer today and it'll possibly stay on there now until spring. I might however nip over to Annecy for a quick ride this week if it clears up over that way, I'll probably get out for a tour on my skis though so we'll see.

Anyway the general vibe is that winter is here, there's a load of snow dumping down and things are looking good. I'm going to maybe head up for a wee slide up at Le Tour when it clears, but at the moment the roads are deep in it and getting covered as fast as they can clear them.

I read this week in a French paper that Mont Blanc had shifted some 26meters to the East! I guess this is over quite some time, but the French were quick to point out that the summit is still in France? It has also lost half a meter in altitude but is still a tad over 4810m (the actual rock summit is some 18m under the summit ice cap) the summit is also said to rise by 1cm a year! I was up there loads this summer and never even noticed!

Course news: I'm thinking about running a Snowboard touring week over in the Ortler Alps mid April. It looks prety good for snowboard touring as its mostly hike up and ride down rather than traversing a lot like the Haut Route. I'll keep you posted but if anyone is interested in something like this maybe get in touch and I'll see how the interest looks before I plan it out. Otherwise I'll maybe just go and have a play over there myself?

Anyway it looks like we're going to have a great winter and I'm really looking forward to it. There are a few places left here and there, but things are filling quickly now so if you're inspired to get out and ride with us get in touch sooner rather than later.

All is good and you can get excited now!

Neil.