Back on classic skis today. Hard work with soft snow and lots of jumping in and out of the rails due to the thaw. Footprints everywhere. A lot melted since yesterday.

I wanted to see how much snow was left on the Ch. de l'Herse. I figured I'd start at St Hilaire as it is much higher.

First aulp du Seuil of the ski season, better late than never. I'd hoped for more snow, the avalanche bulletin had mentioned 20cm of fresh, it was probably a quarter of that.

When I arrived at the car-park it was already full at 10am although some people were starting to leave saying the snow had become unskiably soft.

The main reason to climb to the Cochette is the view. That said on a day of fresh snow the forest either side of the summit trail is skiable and the avalanche risk is not huge.

A return to St Hilaire du Touvet, this is becoming a habit but it had been raining for days with a lot of avalanche activity. We would also avoid the scrum of cars at le Sappey or Barrioz.

First off I beached my car on deep snow, trying to turn for the parking. I should have immediately parked when I saw the road was white.

Nice snow for an early morning classic ski working a bit on technique.

I shouldn't have bothered really. When I arrived at the trail head it was raining quite hard and the piste was completely waterlogged but as I was on classic skis I thought it might not be too bad.

An afterwork, this time on skate skis so a bit quicker. The conditions were good up on the higher part of the trail with cold snow.