Celestial Portal

What an unbelievable vision to behold whilst out skiing… the snow quality is out of this world, to the point of when floating through the lightness of feathers, and ploufing into it, just the once… the softness was never ending, when I pushed my ski pole into the ground to push myself back up, my pole kept sinking, there was no solid ground! Lovely though….

or... perhaps, the Empyreal Entrance, or the Pure Pass?!

The whole day was magical… there’s an abundance of sparkling light and newness when the snow is here, and of such quality, it almosts consecrates the ground for whatever reason, all I know is that it is altogether beautiful.

The Celestial Portal came into view, the doorway into the Celestial Universe, I’ve named it that as it only appeares once every 2000 years! Well, Indiana Jones poetic licence allowed on this very special occasion!

A few more pics here.

Flaine

So bit of an update… all in all, it’s been Airport Transfers and some lovely skiing… We decided to have a ski in the other valley, that being Flaine and Les Carroz,

on piste down to Les Carroz

and what a beautiful valley to ski in. Fabulous dynamic runs lovely and wide with some excellent alternative views along the way. We’ll certainly be returning sometime soonish. Glorious weather, with clean, fresh pristine air…. heavenly.

More pics here…

looking up towards Mt. Jolie and Red run...
almost empty!

We’ve been having a lot of trouble with the ‘Server’ recently, on and off every five minutes, what a pain in the butt! so it’s been a tad difficult to keep the blog updated. Anyway, here’s a quick update before the thing disconnects again!

We’ve been skiing… and it was loads of fun. Just up here at St. Gervais. The snow was really good not quite powder but certainly got some depth, there’s no solid base beneath the snow though so going off piste brought us to a swift halt!  It’s been snowing today and the snow is probably gorgeous but it’s very windy and visibility would be very limited so not particularly inviting. There were only a few lifts open in St. Gervais and Les Contamines  just for the weekend but are now closed again, until the official opening on Saturday, 17th. Les Grands Montets had a few open too, and are open again today but the high winds, and rapid deterioration forecast kept us away. It’s looks like there’s more to come, so just biding time until then.

Christmas, isn’t far away now another year coming to a close… doesn’t time fly??

More pics of today in Daily Pics.

Plaine Joux Launch... now!

And here’s the other side, a lot more than yesterday!

a lot more than yesterday...!

Tom, preparing for his first flight of the day

We’ve got flyable weather until next Tuesday, so we should be out ploufing ourselves whilst waiting for the snow. It wasn’t all ploufing today though, as there was a good face breeze, which certainly helped Tom, get some reverse launch practice in, he  did an independent reverse launch without a hitch, as well as four forwards launches, and completed most of his EP tasks, so he’s well on the way.

Whilst I was preparing to have my own plouf, another pilot landed after getting some reasonable height just above the Fiz, it was possible to climb out if taking off from a higher altitude. A couple of gliders managed a scrape out. It’s ok, if you can hike up there, but with full xc gear it can be a bit tough. Chamonix lifts are still closed for the time being so we don’t have that luxury for a number of weeks yet.

Lots of Prepping for Ploufing

Well the weather’s been well, boring! I know dreadful thing to say, but apparently the Meteo forcaster in Chamonix has been saying the same thing, just emply blue skies with nothing happening. I can really appreciate the clouds and know exactly where Gavin Pretor-Pinney is coming from! Well all that’s happening on the flying front is ‘ploufs’ be they ‘bon’ or otherwise, “That’s all we’re getting and be satisfied!”, say’s mother nature! Well we’ve had a late in the season beginner pilot learning with us, and he had his first flight today. It was a bit touch and go whether to launch him to be honest as it was a nil wind situation, anyway I need’nt have worried, as he’s got a natural touch and a good run, so all was well.

There were a couple of tandems working unusally this time of the year, but maybe the seasons are on the change and we could be entering a new age?! Who knows?!

We’ve got regular frosted mornings, and early frozen vehicles the early signs of approaching winter… There’s been some snow on the Italian side of the mountain already and various light dustings around here but only short lived, it’s still incredibly mild in the afternoons.