Hills, Trains, Beer... and the stag do of Darren Neil Axe

These are three things that may or may not frequently appear on the tick list for stag do's these days. Hills, they're pretty mainstream these days and the pursuit of hill bagging seems to be one of those peculiarly male dominated persuits; one that wives can only roll the eyes at when it is announced that another bleak, rounded, mist shrouded hill must be ticked from the list. Trains; it's a well known fact that all boys aspire to be train drivers when they grow up and of course not many actually do so the rest are left with a feeling of excitement every time they hear the sound of a locomotive whistle on the wind. Beer; I'm sure there is no need to describe the association between that one and stag do's, that is except for the fact that a fine Scottish ale from the Cairngorm brewery goes by the name of 'Stag'. Enough said.

All gathered at Dolwyddelan station on the Saturday morning awaiting the train to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

It was under the notion of these three commodities that I managed to bring together 21 of my fine fellas to the small village of Dolwyddelan in North wales for my stag do in mid-March 2016, exactly 5 weeks before our wedding. For those setting out from Lancaster on the train on Friday evening it turned out to be a rather entertaining journey as even without the usual stag paraphernalia such as group antlers, we still managed to attract great interest from those around us. Firstly a drunk passenger headed for Preston on board the Llandudno Junction train (!) who took a strangely intense interest in the two physicists among us. Secondly, after missing our bus at Llandudno Junction and deciding to wait out time for the next train in the Old Station Hotel, we once again proved quite an attraction to the locals next to us who most of all seemed fascinated that we were headed for Dolwyddelan for a stag do! Luckily for them, most of the others had had relatively benign journeys and we all congregated in Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan for evening beers.

The southern portal of the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel surrounded by the slate spoil dominated landscape of Blaenau.

Saturday morning, the chaps were awoken on the dot 06:30 to a soothing series of blasts on one of my railway whistles. The early start was to enable us to get organised for the first activity of the weekend; crawling around inside a hollow hill. We were headed for the newly opened 'Zip World Caverns' a series of ladders, bridges and zip lines in the disused Llechwedd slate caverns at Blaenau Ffestiniog. This, of course was preceded by a compulsory bit of trains, with us all catching the Conwy Valley line train through the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel through to the aforementioned slate mining capital of the world! It was an appropriately grey and cold March morning, adding to the drama of the slate laden hillsides as we arrived triumphantly at the marvellous station where Network Rail and Ffestiniog Railway metals lie side by side. The Llechwedd Caverns are the product of the Welsh slate rush and following the decline of this heavy industry from the 1960's onwards, have provided underground tours for visitors. The development of adventure tourism within this post-industrial landscape is a relatively recent thing, with there now being downhill mountain biking, outdoor zip wires, the caverns Via Ferrata and the evocative 'bounce below', essentially a massive underground trampoline. Blaenau has long needed a boost, having originally been left out of Snowdonia National Park, and walking around the town it certainly felt like things were on the up. After a thorough training session with an instructor, we were all let loose on the main cavern exploration. It starts in a vast hollow, with a series of zip lines that gradually descend into the depths of the chasm, crossing piles of slate spoil and flooded hollows. There are then a series of narrower passageways, bridges and further traverses on solid Via Ferrata rungs that link several smaller caverns. It's all rather disorientating and every now and then large openings in the passageway walls open out on the main cavern. The tour finishes with a steep climb over cargo nets and through vertical worm-hole like passageways back to the starting point, which is suddenly reached, somewhat anticlimactically. It's a wonderful exploration, and really gets you right into the heart of this impossible myriad of man-made tunnels and caverns.

Upon resurfacing to daylight, the barren, grey landscape of Llechwedd and its fellow spoils seemed intensely bright and sharp after several hours in the relative colourless abyss. However, after a quick lunch and march up the verge of the A470 to the Crimea Pass, the drab slate dominated landscape was exchanged for the usual parched, sepia tones of the uplands in late winter. The bleak Moelwyns are one of the lesser walked ranges in Snowdonia. We were getting in the next bit of hills in by ascending up and over the lofty 524 metre summit of Moel Dyrnogydd. After this, the most direct route down to Dolwyddelan involved a rather rough tramp over tussocky grass down into the relatively more benign sheep pasture dominated landscape of the valley. After passing a series of scruffy farms, with the first of springs’ lambs bleating and stumbling around we skirted Doowyddelan Castle and back to Bryn Tirion.

Entering the abyss of Llechwedd Slate Caverns

Our beer based entertainment had been orchestrated in the form of a train-themed fancy dress night thanks to Graeme, one of my best men. This had been taken on board to varying levels of enthusiasm, and the costumes certainly provided entertainment for the owners and locals frequenting Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan village. Thankfully we had been given our own room, off to one side of the bar, within which to keep ourselves entertained and enjoy a convivial meal and drinks. Given the demand for real ale, the single pump was dry by about half time and by full time, all supplies of a bottled St Agnes (Cornwall) brewery beer had been consumed. Last but not least, a big tick was placed in the beer box.

Traversing the cableways and gantries of the 'zip world caverns'.

After an action-packed Saturday, it was agreed that a lie-in would be granted for Sunday morning. No piercing blasts on the whistle to wake up to and no early trains to catch. We took on board hearty porridge once again and enjoyed the March sunshine that was breaking through. Rowan had organised a navigational-riddle based challenge for us that involved finding toy soldiers in hidden localities around Bryn Tirion farm and Dolwyddelan Castle. It had been promised to keep us all occupied for about an hour. However some of us  (me included) manage to miss the most critical element of the briefing session (that there were a couple of decoy locations on the list and also not to take the grid references bit too seriously) resulting in much frolicking around the moorland searching for the (un-)promised little plastic soldiers for significantly longer than an hour, much to the entertainment of the ‘winning’ teams. This activity, filled with much merriment drew the big weekend to a close and a prolonged period of goodbyes and departure then followed. For those on the train (via the mid-afternoon bus to Llandudno Junction as there is no winter Sunday Conwy valley line service), there was time for a picnic in the spring-like sunshine over in Dolwyddelan. For the Lancaster folk, our train journey back north was far less eventful than the Friday, just as well as we’d had just about enough excitement for one weekend.

And there we have it, hills, trains, beer, all successfully accomplished. The countdown to our wedding now officially commences.

On the top of Moel Dyrnogydd

en-route to the International Mountain Leader Award

I'm writing this on board the TGV Perpignan-Paris, returning from the Pyrénées-Orientales, venue for my IML winter assessment. We're now north of the the Rhône valley (the scenic bit) so there's some time between now and Paris to do some writing. Ironically, the TGV is zooming through a blizzard as we head North and my altimeter says just 336 m, although it hasn't been recalibrated since Friday. Quite a contrast to when Imogen and I arrived in Avignon two Saturday's ago to blue skies and almost 20 C! The winter assessment has concluded a two year journey through the IML scheme, and I'll take this opportunity to take a look back at the whole process.

Since starting out on the Mountain Training schemes, I had my sights on the IML award as an objective, as I was attracted by its strong emphasis on mountain journeying on foot and environmental dissemination to groups and clients. This area of mountaineering is what I had come to enjoy most throughout the past twenty years of exploring mountain environments at home and abroad. I started the training and assessment process in April 2014, with the summer training at Plas-Y-Brenin. The first step involves lots of intro and overview of the award content and is probably about 50/50 practical to theory. There is a 'hill day' and the usual steep ground stuff common to all the ML schemes. You also start the process straight off with a bit of assessment; the speed navigation test, although this is certainly not about speed as the name suggested and more about just getting round the course in a reasonable time. Many decide to go for it however and on my speed nav, we had candidates flying up and down the grassy north slopes of Moel Siabod. I took a more gentle approach and still made it back with about 15 minutes to spare. The great thing about the IML being a 4-stage process, with a limited number of course dates available at each stage is that you tend to meet some of your fellow candidates again further down the line. It's always nice to be on assessment with people you've met before and it gives a good opportunity for shared learning when it comes to preparing for assessment. 

Pas de la Cavale, 2735 m on the GR54 Tour d’Oisans, Écrins National Park, France.

The summer after my training, I managed to get out in the Alps twice. Firstly to the Gran Paradiso national park, doing some easy Alpinism and secondly to the Écrins, where I volunteered myself to lead a group of friends around the GR54 (Tour d'Oisans). The latter was perfect summer assessment prep and gave me some excellent log book days. 

Vallon de Chambran, Écrins National Park, France.

Winter training followed next in January 2015. Currently, these courses tend to be based in Le Grand Bornand (Haute-Savoie, France). It's a nice venue, at the Auberge Nordique, tucked in a deep valley below the Chaine des Aravis. The lodge caters for Nordic skiers as well as snowshoers and there a usually a number of groups in at once. The training was good fun and we got out to a variety of venues to look at the various aspects of the winter syllabus; snowshoe journeying, environmental knowledge, use of transceivers, shovel, probe, snow pack analysis and avalanche risk assessment, the use of ski areas and uplift and security on steeper ground. The snow conditions were fairly limited for most of the week at valley level, but a passing front mid-week deposited around 30 cm of fresh above around 1200 m, meaning we were able to find better conditions for the activities requiring deeper accumulations. The winter training was my first introduction to snowshoeing and the Alpine winter environment (as I had never skied), and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Snowshoeing enables you to get away from the noise and crowds of the pistes and discover the forests and alpages in their natural winter state, peaceful and criss-crossed with animal tracks. 

Next up was the summer assessment, late August 2015. The good thing about the courses being limited in number is that it forces you to book early (as soon as dates are released), therefore giving plenty of time for preparation. I began my theoretical prep around late-May. There are lots of paperwork (although mostly computer these days) based things to tick-off in the lead up to assessment; the home paper, a leaders resource pack for the area, route ideas and on the hill talks or group activities to prepare. I found it invaluable, and also very interesting to put lots of time into this preparation. My assessment was based around Samoëns in the Giffre valley. It's a lovely part of the limestone pre-Alps, thrust upwards just to the North of the Mont-Blanc massif and Aiguilles Rouges. Thus there are great views from the various randonnées and tours in the area. I headed out a week ahead of the assessment, in order to get familiar with the area and visualise all the stuff that up until that point had all been rather theoretical. I based myself on the Camping du Giffre on the edge of Samoëns. I met up with another candidate, Ian from my winter training, who I have subsequently gone on to complete the award with this March. The prep week was incredibly useful, especially as there were two of us, and we were able to practice techniques, bounce ideas and have a go together at identifying flowers and trees. The assessment itself went well, although very quickly at just 3 and a half days with two nights up in refuges. Unfortunately we had some low cloud and drizzle on two days which was not what we had booked!

Summit of la Bourgeoise 1770 m, an accessible snowshoe peak in the Haut-Giffre valley, France with a spectacular 360 vista.

This left just one hurdle; the winter assessment. As my only experience on 'raquettes' was from the winter training week at Le Grand Bornand, I decided I needed to get out to the Alps in January 2016, to gain more familiarisation with the alpine winter environment and get in some logbook days. Luckily, I had already completed the winter ML in April 2015 and also had some overseas winter experience from New Zealand, but I was particularly keen to get more experience in the rather more unique world of snowshoeing and the rolling Nordic terrain in which it is generally practiced. For this, Imogen and I arranged a family trip back to the Haut-Giffre, this time to the little village of Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval. As it was booked for early season, we were nervous about snow conditions but luckily a big dump came in a couple of days before we arrived so conditions were perfect. On day 1 we were able to snowshoe down the valley in 40 cm of fresh powder. Later in the week, we had some wonderful outings at Morillon 1100 - Plateau d'Agy and the Joux Plane Col. We also managed to fit in a bit of first timer Nordic skiing. 

Snowshoeing in fresh powder snow in the Giffre Valley near Sixt-fer-à-Cheval, France.

And so this all leads into late February this year, when Imogen and I boarded the direct Eurostar London - Avignon, starting out on a two week venture to the Pyrénées that would include the final stage of my IML assessment. I had once again spent many evenings and weekends on the computer, sorting out all the theory/paperwork stuff. This time around, a vast amount of time had been devoted to the daily Méteo France Avalanche forecasts for the Pyrénées-Orientales, which helped tremendously in terms of building up a picture of the snowpack through the winter. After spending one night in Avignon, we continued our journey South, this time on the Spanish AVE heading for Madrid. This deposited us in Perpignan, where we headed west and uphill into the Pyrénées. At the town of Villefranche de Conflent, just where the valley of the Têt narrows and steepens, there is a change of train and gauge onto the historic 'Train Jaune'. This winds its way up over 1000 m of ascent from the Conflent to the Cerdagne plateau. For the prep week, we were staying in the village of Egat, near Font-Romeu. We had settled for a campsite as all the other accommodation in the town was fairly expensive. Luckily, the campsite had a heated toilet block, although when we arrived, air temperatures were up at about 14 C! My fellow candidate and colleague on the IML journey, Ian was also in the area early and we made the most of the prep week to cover all the various syllabus topics and also get our eye into the local environment. The Pyrénées-Orientales is a very different mountain environment to the Alps, being a high open plateau with granitic tors forming mostly rolling mountains with a high tree line. However there are a number of more spikey ridge lines and cirques that form the backdrop such as the Pic Carlit, Pic Peric and Cambre d'Aze. At the very end of the prep week, a top up in the snow arrived. Overnight Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday, around 50 cm of fresh snow fell at 1500 m. This provided the ideal starting point for the assessment. I moved indoors to the base for the course, El Mouli del Riu at St Pierre dels Forcats on Sunday. The base was very comfortable and the food was great. The IML group had sole occupancy which meant the whole course was much more convivial. Three assessors from Plas-Y-Brenin oversaw us in groups of four candidates. The assessment itself progressed very much as expected but with the usual assessment nerves and the extra pressure of this being the last step made for a long and full-on week. We mostly had sunshine, but the dominant airflow was a swift Northwesterly, which made for somewhat cool conditions and even one day of almost Scottish conditions; luckily we were doing emergency shelters that day so had a good hour out of the weather inside those. There was certainly plenty of transceiver work, but leadership and environmental knowledge were vitally important, as was competence in steep ground security and reading the terrain. By the end of the week, we were all pretty drained so it was a big relief when we boarded the minibuses for the last time and headed back to the lodge for results. 

All in all, the IML scheme has been a wonderful journey and it's great to feel the jigsaw gradually coming together as you progress through the various stages. If you're thinking of going for it, or have an upcoming assessment, drop me an e-mail. Alternatively, if you're looking for a custom-made summer alpine trek or winter snowshoe adventure, please get in touch and I would be delighted to discuss your requirements.

On a typical snowshoe route in Formiguères, Pyrénées-Orientales, France.

Making the most of the Northern Summer

We've had a good couple of (moderately summer-like) excursions for the last two weekends in July, even with the below-average temperatures and generally westerly flow having been in control of our weather since the very short lived heat-blip at the very start at the month.

Helvellyn Summit Cairn.

Last weekend, a large group of my University friends were gathered in the North Lakes, based around the campsite at Burns Farm near Threlkeld. I joined them for a walk on Helvellyn on the Saturday; it turned out to be a good day out in the sunshine. After ascending from the East via Helvellyn Gill, we dropped down Swirral Edge and back up Striding Edge before undertaking the long romp northwards over the rounded hills generally known as the 'Dodd's'. Imogen joined us later in the evening as we all gathered for a meal at the Horse and Farrier in Threlkeld.

How many people can fit in a grouse butt?!

This weekend just gone, we had a gathering of another set of University friends over in the picturesque valley of Swaledale, North Yorkshire. Swaledale is one of my favourite of the Yorkshire Dales; one of the remotest and it has a very rural Yorkshire feel to it. It is a particularly cosy valley to visit in winter, with  proper pubs in every village. A particular highlight is the Swaledale Woollens shop in Muker, where many a fine knitted product can be found. This time, we were staying at the Low Row bunk barn near Reeth. The lighting is operated by a £1 coin meter so we decided that given it was high summer we would economise, and spent Friday evening mostly under atmospheric darkness. On Saturday, we headed out over Reeth Moor to the North of the valley, a rather barren Grouse Moor with a number of long closed lead mines scattered around here and there. More picturesque and interesting however was the valley of Gunnerside Gill, along which we returned to Gunnerside and the River Swale, the National Park of course is best known for its Dales rather than its hills after all. There are a number of interesting 19th century lead mine workings in the upper reaches of Gunnerside Gill, including the Sir Francis Mine and the interesting stone and iron ruins of the Blakethwaite Smelt Mill. The valley displays perfect limestone overlain by grit topography that typifies the Dales. As the Gill opens out into the main valley of the Swale, the footpath leads through lovely deciduous woodland and meadow, where a few orchids were in flower.
Before heading back to the bunkhouse, we called in at the King's Head pub in Gunnerside for some fine refreshment courtesy of the Black Sheep brewery, Masham. They do know how to mak'em good over there.

Gunnerside Gill, displaying extensive surface evidence of former lead mining activities.

Speed to the West

This July, Imogen and I spent a long weekend in the South Devon AONB, experiencing a proper bit of sun, sea and sand. After a generally cooler than average Spring and Summer so far 'up north' in 2015, we were looking forward to something decidedly more 'tropical' down in the West Country. 

On Friday evening, we pulled into a warm Totnes on a CrossCountry Voayger and had just a short wander through the Tudor market town to a lovely little 'airbnb' on the banks of the River Dart. The accommodation was a Romahome camper, parked up in the leafy back garden of the hosts' terraced house. It was a very cosy and peaceful night, followed by a lazy breakfast on deckchairs in the sunshine by the Dart. 

The 'Romahome' camper in a lovely garden next to the River Dart in Totnes.

The Dart is still just about tidal at Totnes, but not by much. The proximity to the sea was exemplified by the presence of several yachts and boat trips down to the coastal town of Dartmouth. The town itself is worth a good look around. The buildings are finely kept and historic and there are interesting staircases, bridges and a semi-ruined castle. Totnes is also well known as being the founding location of the 'Transition' (pro-sustainability) movement and the first Transition Town. It even has its own currency, the Tones pound, with the aim of keeping money in the local economy. Definitely a place to come back to, but on this trip there was just time to grab a Devonshire pasty and a quick look around before the bus for the Coast. 

The village of Slapton is barely 12 miles from Totnes, but due to the Devon hills and country lanes (and layout of the towns), the bus journey took around 2 hours, with some spare time in the town of Kingsbridge. The latter is another functional country town, sitting at the head of the Kingsbridge Estuary.

We were staying the night with our friend Graeme who works at the FSC Slapton Centre (Field Studies Council). After pitching the tent in the garden of his staff house, we headed for the vast shingle expanse of Slapton Sands. It was true British beach weather by the time we got to the beach; overcast and a brisk, cool wind. Thankfully, I had lugged my wetsuit with me on this trip so the surprisingly cool water did not make too much of an impact. For Imogen and Graeme however it was a question of a brief dip will do. On Saturday evening Graeme took us to one of the country pubs in Slapton village. 

Greame bites into a home-baked calzone, perfect fodder for the coast path! The beaches of Bee Sands and Slapton Sands stretch out into the distance.

Sunday was an altogether better day, and a nice surprise too as it had been forecasting heavy rain all day earlier in the week! This was perfectly timed for our 20 km + jaunt around the South Devon Coast towards Salcombe. The sun was shining in true West Country form and we marched off along the dead straight of the shingle bank that separates the freshwater of Slapton Ley (the largest body of freshwater in the SW) from the salty English Channel. Apparently, the shingle bar is expected to be breached by the sea at some point in the next 50 years, and as you approach Torcross at the far Southern end of the Ley, it's easy to see how with the village being perched on a very narrow stretch of 'land'. The powerlessness of man vs. the sea is evident further along the coast with the Lost Village near Hallsands, where the remains of an old fishing village are just about evident on the wave-cut platform. This part of the world has suffered quite a battering from powerful winter storms in recent years, with the prime example being the breach of the Dawlish Sea wall, closing the Great Western mainline for a couple of months during Feb-March 2014. 

Our coastal walk took us right around Start Point, with its rocky finger like ridge, pointing out Eastwards into the Channel, and onto Prawle Point, with its National Coastwatch Institution lookout station. The Coastwatch stations are an excellent feature of British coast path walking, being a network of 50 former coastguard stations now owned by the charity and staffed entirely by volunteers. There are usually interesting displays about the marine vessels operating in the area, notable shipwrecks and local marine wildlife and bird sightings. 

The section of the SW Coast Path passes many interesting coves and beaches only accessible on foot. We made our way down the steep path into Gammon Cove, tucked in beneath the towering cliffs of Gammon Head. It was fairly busy on the beach, but most of the other visitors had come by yacht or motorboat, which they had moored in the bay. We had a lovely swim in the clear waters, just as well as there were a few jellyfish floating around. 

The wave-cut platform and classic raised beach environment is displayed on the section of coast just east of Prawle Point. 

Gammon Cove and the rugged promontory of Gammon Head.

Imogen and I were booked into a small camping and yurting site called Higher Nature, near East Portlemouth on the Sunday night, an ecological campground set in a lovely peaceful meadow with waist-high flowering grasses. Graeme had carried his bivi-bag around with him and planned to bivi on the coast path prior to walking back to Slapton early on Monday. The Higher Nature site has a cooking cabin for preparing meals, so we made use of that before joining Graeme again for a trip to the pub in East Prawle. It was a good 45 minute walk along the typical hedgerow lined Devonshire lanes to the Pigs Nose at East Prawle, but well worth it. The pub had a very typical West Country feel to it, with several beers and ciders available from the cask. For our return walk to the campsite, the mist had come in, making for an atmospheric wander in the darkness. Graeme set off eastwards to the coast path to find an appropriate bivi spot.

The mist was still in on Monday morning, although by the time we were on the coast path again, bound toward the Salcombe Ria (deep flooded estuaries that typify this section of coast), it had lifted slightly and we caught glimpses of Bolt Head forming the next section west of the yachting town where our journey came to end. The beaches on the east side of the estuary are lovely and sandy and would no doubt be lovely for swimming on a sunny day (but also likely busy in high Summer). We caught the little launch across to Salcombe from the East Portlemouth ferry landing and launched ourselves into the bursting streets of one of the South Wests most 'executive' holiday towns, the size and grandeur of a super yacht moored in the centre of the Ria gave a good indication of the wealth of many of the visitors. The high level of second home ownership and infriltation of high-end clothing shops probably makes for a fairly non-vibrant local economy out of season. We grabbed ourselves some chips for lunch but passed on ice cream until back at Kingsbridge where we once again changed buses for Totnes. It was great to be supporting the local buses given all the cuts to local authority funding, but a shame to be strongly in the minority as 'full fare' paying passengers. The lack of funding has resulted in fares themselves being set at cost-prohibitive rates for families with cars etc. This is something that has to change in areas like the SW, which just become clogged with cars in the high Summer. This was demonstrated perfectly as we queued on the approach to Totnes station for around 10 mins in crawling traffic. 

A misty last day on the coast path leading into the Salcombe Ria.

It was raining and quite cool whilst we awaited departure at Totnes, I was still in my swimming shorts and was feeling quite chilly so paced up and down on the platform to warm up. The journey back north to Birmigham was a treat aboard one of just 5 CrossCountry HST's (Inter-City 125's), the finest way to travel to and from the West. The train was fairly quiet through Devon and Somerset and the HST made for an excellent viewpoint of the Dawlish Coastal section and fine Devonshire countryside between Exeter and Tiverton with its large windows and spacious carriages. It was a case of from the veteran class to the youth with the change at the nearly revamped Birmingham New Street onto a sleek 11-car Pendolino for the journey back to Lancaster. 

In search of the Alpine Winter

This January, I hit the Alps for the first time in winter, or at least during the season thereof with a little winter weather thrown in for a bit of good measure. The purpose of the trip was to undertake the IML (International Mountain Leader) winter training course with Plas-Y-Brenin. The venue for the course was the wonderful Auberge Nordique, Le Grand-Bornand in the Massif des Aravis area of the Haute-Savoie. This is a wonderful part of the Alps with very easy access by train from the UK, which is of course, my mode of choice for excursions to the near continent and beyond.

On the outward trip, I overnighted at Rowan's student house in Twickenham, always handy to have a relative in the London area ;-) (thanks Rowan). This set me up for the 07:01 Eurostar. Various options present themselves for the 4 km transfer between the Gare du Nord and the Gare de Lyon. On this occasion I decided to opt for the number 65 bus as I had well over 2 hours between Eurostar and TGV. I much prefer the bus to the RER, not least because on my most recent summer excursion, I had my mobile phone pickpocketed at Gare du Nord RER station! It was a rather solemn day to be crossing Paris as the tragic Charlie Hebdo attacks had recently taken place and it was also the day of the arrest of one of the protagonists in Northern France. As a result, the streets were very empty and there was a strong media presence at the Place de la République. The 65 bus deposits you conveniently onto the Boulevard Diderot, with a view of the magnificent façade of the Gare de Lyon. It was rather damp in Paris and typically I was in need of finding a toilet so I wandered to a nearby café for a mid-morning drink and snack. Very close to the Gare de Lyon is the Coulée Verte or Promenade Plantée, a disused elevated railway that has been converted into a 'green corridor' walkway. The route offers great views of the Parisian architecture above street level and comes under the directive of the 'Jardins et Parcs' department of the Marie de Paris. I had a wander along the walkway, admiring the Parisian upper storeys with my drag along case in tow prior to boarding the TGV for Annecy.

Limestone pavement above le Chinaillon (Le Grand-Bornand 1300 m).

For my first night in Le Grand-Bornand, I was staying at the Gîte d'étape la Chèvrerie on the hillside to the North of the village centre. Luckily, as common in most French ski resorts a free 'navette' or shuttle bus took me most of the way there, although there was still a good deal of uphill on road to be done to reach the Gîte, I turned down a lift from a passer by who ended up being the son of the owner of the Gîte - slightly awkward but I much prefer to be fully self sufficient as a non-driver who could never return the favour.

On Saturday, I was moving up-valley to the Auberge Nordique, the base for the rest of the week. I had a look around Le Grand Bornand village centre in the morning, followed by catching the ski-bus up to the end of the Vallée du Bouchet. I met up with Phil, my room mate for the rest of the week at the auberge for lunch and was then keen to get out into the sunshine. There had not been any snowfall of any significance since around the 20th December, so the South facing slopes were all rather bare. As a result, my walk up through zig-zag paths at head of the Bouchet valley was largely on mud and gravel! At around 1500 m, I joined a forest track, and finally got the snow shoes on and plodded on up to the Col des Annes via the Col de Borneronde. The snow was mostly firm with a shallow breakable crust in places.

On Sunday morning, a series of relatively light snow showers passed through in the morning. In the afternoon, I caught the ski-bus via Le Grand Bornand to le Chinaillon (G-B 1300 m). This is largely a sprawling mass of ski apartments, giving direct access to the skiing on the North side of Mont Lachat. From the village centre, I took a 'sentier de découverte' (nature trail) on a short circuit up and along the top of the limestone scarp that overhangs to the north of the village.

Vallée du Bouchet & Chaine-des-Aravis from near les Confins.

The course itself, started on Monday morning in the auberge, with 12 candidates joined by Simon Hale from Plas-Y-Brenin and John Jones from Glenmore Lodge. We had a range of informative outings on the snowshoes, covering topics ranging from avalanche awareness and transceiver-shovel-probe use to the softer elements of the winter Alpine environment; flora, fauna and perhaps more appropriately for the time of year, the tracks, trails and signs of the latter. Overnight Tuesday to Wednesday, there was some fresh precipitation; just about snow above 1000 m. As a result of the fresh snowfall at altitude, we headed around to La Clusaz in order to catch the télécabine up to the Plateau de Beauregard (1600 m). We stepped off the gondola in the latter end of the snow showers, so had an hour or two wandering around with our goggles on and hoods up! The fresh fall had put down several centimetres of powder, so the snowshoeing on the plateau was really quite genuine.
By Friday, we all felt fairly wised up on our winter knowledge, and spent the morning undertaking a final group avalanche rescue scenario, with a multiple-victim burial search near the Chapelle de la Duche.

Snowshoeing in the Col des Annes area, Pointe Percée and Massif-des-Aravis in the distance.

Typically, by the evening of Friday, heavy snow had come in and by early Saturday morning there was around 30 cm of fresh stuff piled up on every level surface and signpost outside the Auberge. Aside from there being a bit of sleet and slush down in the City of Annecy, I was soon out of the snow and speeding North on board the TGV to Paris. Unfortunately, I arrived at Gare-du-Nord to find all Eurostar services to London cancelled due to a fire on board a shuttle train in the tunnel. All turned out well though as Eurostar covered an extra night of Parisian accommodation and I found a good little bistro for some food in the northern quarters of the city.

The Auberge-Nordique and Vallée du Bouchet after a top-up of snow.