Snow in St Andre

This weekend definitely feels like the start of the winter. Although there was already snow higher up the mountains, St Andre has stayed clear of the snow. But all that changed over the weekend.

Saturday looked as though a super-cold hike and fly might have been possible; the start of the day was cold and clear but with bad weather forecast to move in during the afternoon. However, things happened a little quicker than the forecast; as soon as the first clouds appeared it was clearly very windy at launch height. So I had a snowy hike in the Thorame valley. I used the hike to test some new gear. I now have electric gloves and they were very good - but only for the first 4 hours of the hike, by then the batteries were exhausted! I've also been breaking in some new boots, and it seemed a good occasion to give them a longer hike; they were fine, but my feet were happy to see the end of the hike. I saw a couple of boars and a fox; the fox played for about 5 minutes before he realized I was watching from about 400 meters away - then he run away very fast.

Overnight, a lot of snow fell on St Andre. I had a short tour on my XC skis, but my feet were a little painful from the day before, so I didn't stay out too long. I'm back in the warmth now, about to light a fire.

Pics of the hike and St Andre under the snow.