To spite his face!!

This week has been quite mild and clear, so the skiing has been a bit naff off piste, although we have had a couple of good tours out of the ski area before the snow became to crusty. To mix things up a bit we went ice climbing with one of our staff mates to a 60m ice fall above the next village up valley. This was our first trip here but Paul (our driver) has been coming here all winter. Being a mild day the ice was quite brittle and shattered off in big chunks while being climbed. As long as prudence and care was taken it could still be climbed safely, and this is what we did. But while Ben was seconding the top section a large plate of ice about the size of a dinner plate sheared off after an axe placement above him and fell on to his head. He looked down and the ice plate deflected off his helmet and slid down his front. Unfortunately the sharp bladed edge of ice sliced through the top of his nose leaving a chunk of skin flapping and a whole lot of blood spaying everywhere. After swearing a lot in a few languages, using words that his grandmother shouldn’t hear, he finished the climb and descended so Karen could patch him up. A short trip to the doctors after stopping for lunch and a coffee and the wound was cleaned and re dressed exactly as Karen had dressed it and He was sent on his way. Now with a stupid looking dressing covering his nose and a burning desire to buy a face shield for his climbing helmet!!

Internet is go at home! Email us!!

Its been a bit of a mixed bag of a month.

Its been both warm and sunny, which produces good spring skiing but destroys the water ice, then warm rain comes along and melts most of the lower slopes and closes the upper slopes due to avalanches, then it cooled down again and snowed and we’re back to were we started. Ben was sick in bed for a week with the flu.... no one does unbearably grumpy and sick better than Ben! Karen has been charging, helping to cover front of house and still run the kitchen (Chef included). We hired a car to go and watch Lou race in St Moritz at the world champs. When we got there she was tired and sick. She was suffering from food poisoning and had only eaten lolly pops and sweets for days. Day one she was the slowest off the start by far with push that was lacking energy and still carrying a bung ankle. But surprisingly she pulled a few place back and was only two tens of a second off the top twenty. Day two however changed things as we got a text saying she was in hospital on a drip and there would be no more racing for her! Very sad! We have agreed that we will not go and watch her race as she never seems to do very well when we’re there. Maybe family is a bit of a unusual distraction or we just jinx her. Something for the family to keep in mind. Today we re visited our pet frozen water fall to see if it was climbable again but alas it was thin and brittle. We managed to top tope it (and remove about a 1/5 in the process) but there won’t be any more leading on it for a while :( ! Guest this month have been really good but the last week were a bit lacking in the tip department. But with Ben back on form hosting we should pull that back. All in all things are trucking along nicely!! Ciao.

We went touring yesterday, down a hidden basin that leads eventually to the valley at the back of our chalet. Great tour with pockets of powder snow and difficult crusty conditions in the sun (that pretty much sums up the snow conditions here at present!).
We spent a interesting evening watch the ski bars (those on the slopes) close and the ridiculously drunk patrons skiing and boarding down the final run to town. The winner was a scandy bloke who took half an hour to get into his skis then managed one turn before falling over and grovelling his way down. It took him close on a hour to do a 3min ski run! Very entertaining!