The FMP Blog

Col du Petit Saint Bernard opening soon

Chris — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:21:59 +0000

I did a training ride a couple of days ago, cycling as far up the Col du Petit Saint Bernard as I could get. The photo below shows the head of the line of 3 snow blowers that are making their way slowly to the top. There was an impressive amount of snow up there but they are scheduled to have the Col open by 25 May, giving us access to the Aosta Valley.

It wasn’t too cold up there, just needed a jacket for the wind, but it’s certainly cold today – snowing in Bourg.

Bank holiday here tomorrow and I’m off for my first cyclosportive race of the season, Les Trois Cols, 165km with 2600km of climbing. I’m a bit apprehensive as I haven’t broken 100km in recent training. Hoping the legs have got enough in them.

Snow clearing on the Col du Petit Saint-Bernard

Publicis and Paris

Chris — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:09:16 +0000

My daughter, Emily, got the opportunity for a work placement with Publicis in Paris last week, which she thoroughly enjoyed, and we tagged along to get a bit of culture in.

As it turns out, Lesley and I did less of the sightseeing, given the horrendous weather (and because we’ve seen it all before), and more of the lunches in cosy restaurants and looking at museums and galleries – the Matisse exhibition being a highlight.

We came back to find that the weather was a continuing theme in the Alps (and pretty much all of Europe, it seems) – it’s been a thoroughly wet and miserable sign-off to what was an absolutely brilliant ski season.

Fresh powder as the season comes to a close

Chris — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:38:46 +0000

Did a bit of skiing last week, whiteouts quite a lot of the time but great snow conditions. No massive dumps but we’ve been having regular top-ups and we were skiing fresh powder in Val d’Isère on Sunday – fantastic to have such quality snow as the season comes to a close. Sainte Foy lifts stopped on Sunday, lifts in Val will stay open until the end of the month.

Have signed up to build a new chalet for a French family further down the valley, which is great news. I’ve also heard about a new plot in Peisey-Nancroix, which could potentially accommodate a 3/4 bedroom chalet – hope to have more details soon.

Archeboc Ski Touring

Chris — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:29:53 +0000

Thought I’d add a photo from a recent ski tour I did on my own on Archeboc, the highest mountain in Sainte Foy at 3272 metres. It sits right on the Italian border and takes about 1 hour, 50 minutes to reach, using the Sainte Foy lift system.

The picture shows the very icy surface in the early morning, which is incredibly thin – like skiing on a giant egg shell.

Railway Tracks

Chris — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:01:25 +0000

Had some more good ski touring this week with another great bunch. With the warmer weather it’s been a case of timing it just right, the snow being very hard first thing you’ve got to catch it on the turn, before it gets too mushy in the sunshine.

It’s not so bad when you’re skiing hard untracked snow, although it’s now a hike to get to it, but going over hard off-piste snow that’s already been skied is like going over railway tracks.

After skiing I’ve been racing round the current building projects we’re working on before getting back to the office to catch up on admin.

Took some more photos of Montorlin, which is really shaping up nicely. The photo below links to a gallery with all the pics.

Tour de Tarentaise and Ski Touring

Chris — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 20:50:38 +0000

Last week I had plenty of great ski touring with a very experienced group. We were skiing untracked powder, although we had to do a bit of skinning and climbing to get to it, and the sunny weather meant the going was good and solid, like spring snow.

We covered a few couloirs and skied the Tour de Tarentaise, to finish in La Plagne. One of the photos in the gallery below shows us going over the remnants of one of the many avalanches that have been coming down recently, which made it tricky going at times.

To see the thumbnails click on ‘Pictures’ in the top right-hand corner.

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The snow has gone off slightly with the southerly winds of the last few days melting it and then the overnight freezing making it icy.

The photo below shows the Montorlin apartment development, which is coming along. Also on show is our new telescopic loader, a very handy bit of kit to have on site – we had it trucked over from the UK.

Sking Touring with Freeride touring bindings and boots

Chris — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 20:50:32 +0000

It got decidedly warmer last week and the snow was melting hard (if that’s not a contradiction in terms). We did some ski touring on Saturday in shirt sleeves, sun hats and sans gloves, then driving up to Val d’Isère on Sunday morning we noticed cars coming down with snow on the roofs and we found ourselves skiing fresh powder.

K2 KungFujas with Freeride touring bindings

Temperatures are due to plummet to -20°C on Wednesday before bouncing back up again.

The photo on the right is from Saturday – I was trying old skins on my new K2 KungFujas, good all-terrain skis, which I was using for short climbs with Freeride touring bindings and boots. I’ve got a pair of lightweight carbon skis and low-profile bindings for the longer slogs.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

North-facing slopes

Chris — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:18:21 +0000

I was out every day last week skiing with clients, one of whom was over to see his recently-completed chalet. My back held out but still twinging a bit.

Skiing untracked powder in Val d’Isère

The temperatures jumped towards the end of the week and with them the avalanche risk, but we were still able to ski un-tracked powder on the north-facing slopes. You need to get the skins on to get there, though.

No prospect of snowfall on the immediate horizon but the pistes are still in good condition, although some are getting a little hard out of the sun.

We had a great wine-tasting session in Chalet Merlo on Friday night featuring Hospices de Beaune, complemented by a wonderful menu put together by the Merlo chef. Will add some pics to the blog later this week, hopefully.

Sore Back

Chris — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:13:07 +0000

Done something unpleasant to a disc this week, which has meant I’ve had to cancel all the skiing with clients that I had teed up in the diary. Still been busy with project meetings with clients, but struggling to move around and I’m not really supposed to be sitting down at all.

It’s been hurting like hell, as is the way with backs, although it has improved through the week and hoping to be back on skis for Saturday.

Freezing Diesel

Chris — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:57:28 +0000

Although there’s brief respite today with it being a little warmer, cold has been the main feature of the last week.

It’s been great for preserving the skiing conditions but it’s wreaked havoc with just about everything else, vehicles bearing the brunt. The garages have only been supplying diesel with antifreeze that works down to -15°C, not much good when it’s been plunging to -24°C outside our chalet.

Vehicles have been breaking down everywhere – absolute carnage. Even when we’ve warmed up the fuel tank and got an engine going they’ve been conking out after a few minutes – our HGV and the big van were casualties yesterday. It’s the modern, high-efficiency engines that seem to be suffering, our 10-year-old Citroen vans have been chugging around relatively unaffected.

Had some good skiing with Lesley on Sunday and we watched the kids racing in Sainte Foy – Emily won hers.