On Christmas Eve 2011, Alice, Stéphane, Patrick, Margaret, Murray and I headed for Val d'Isère for a bit of skiing. After 4 hours on the train we began to see green fields show signs of snowfall as we rose in altitude. Half an hour later, everything was buried in snow; in the two weeks prior to Christmas, the high Alps had been received a velvet hammering of 2 metres of powder. And on Christmas Day, the sky cleared. Dang, conditions like this don't come often! We had 5 days of bright sunshine, and then the clouds moved in -- big time. Another 60 cm in two days, with high winds. A blizzard. We made it home on New Year's Eve, but just barely...
You'll find attached the last instalment of 2011 photos that try to convey the beauty of the Alps under different conditions. I found that some of them looked more appealing in black & white (actually sepia and white). You may beg to differ. In any event, these images are different than those I've produced in the past few years and it was a refreshing (freezing) change. More snow is expected in the next two weeks and Alice & I will be heading to Méribel to ski again at the end of the month (January 2012). Guy
