Fresh tracks in winter powder today!

These days are here!

I Skinned up Le Tour this morning to the top of the Tete du Balm with the Dog, bit of an excuse to take the dog out for a good walk and get in some early season fresh.

It was a beautiful day, quite a lot of teams out ski touring but once you got up the home piste it was pretty quiet and near enough perfect.

The dog broke trail up towards the Tete du Balm, until he got a bit tired and then he decided to walk on the tails of my skis for a bit. I was to slow though and so he was back out in front before to long. I made it to the top in about an hour from the car park which I think is pretty quick even if the dog wasn't impressed.

It was beautiful up on top with magnificent views of which you'll just have to take my word for as I took no photos. The dog gets a little excited when he knows we're about to go downhill and so I had to make my change over pretty quick as he was ruining the ambiance for everyone, very impatient!

I've not skied since last year so of course headed straight for the steepest and deepest looking fresh snow and set about making some fresh lines. Surprisingly it felt like I'd not really been off them and I managed to score some really nice powder turns for about 400m before rejoining the piste. The dog, who was all ballsy, challenging and over confident at the top was by now wallowing neck deep in it and digging his own fresh line but no contest as to who won there, oposable thumbs do it for us yet again!

The piste was in pretty good condition until the home run and then you hit the man made snow and the snow cannons were on. There's good snow cover to the car park, it just needs pisting to give it some consistancy but all is good.

The Grands Montets opens at the weekend, just the Bochard cabin and the Marmottons chair but once the rush is over I'll head up for a ride on my new Salomon special magnum 166 which looks and feels awesome and it'll be great to get out on the board for a session.

So things seem to have suddenly sped up since the last snow fall, one day I'm out on the bike getting in some decent mileage and not really thinking too much about the winter, the next day it has arrived and its time to slide.

I'm available for private guiding/tuition days in December if anyone fancies hitting the slopes early but I'm not planning on running any scheduled courses so if you fancy an early season technique refresher or a day or two's Off piste/Backcountry warm up give us a shout.

Fantastic, might go back up tomorrow, well, the dog will obviously need to go out!

Neil.