Skiing on New Year's Eve

We set the alarm early as we were determined to get a full day's skiing in today....but when I looked out the window and saw it was still snowing with low cloud and no visibility I climbed back into bed ...and thought how tedious it must be to live in a climate where it snows so much. We then got up later and it had finally stopped snowing. We were up the mountain by 11.30am, the sun had come out and we could finally ski! It was still cold, -13C, and some of the pistes were already quite churned up due to all that snow falling subsequent to them getting groomed, which made the skiing quite hard for me.

As we were sitting on a chair lift we noticed an area where a small avalanche had taken place, and about 30 minutes later when we were skiing down one of the main popular pistes we saw the red emergency helicopter trying to land right next to where we were skiing. Many skiers stopped to look and it seems there had been another avalanche in which a skier had got trapped, as the rescue service men were poking into the snow to find the person. My blood ran cold...even colder than I already was in those temperatures...I don't know the outcome but there were 2 helicopters there for over an hour. Later we noticed people skiing off piste in the same area where this accident had just happened! I did take a photo of the helicopter ascending but there was so much snow being whipped up by the helicopter blades that it just splattered all over the lens.

In such cold weather it is difficult to take photos as I have to take my bulky ski gloves off to use the camera, and within minutes my hands are burning in pain form the cold, so this is a quick shot of the peaks this morning. There was a temperature inversion with the clouds below the peaks, and in the afternoon the sun went and it got really foggy which made skiing horrible.

Tomorrow it is my 2 year blip anniversary, and if it is not too cold I may take some photos of the fireworks in the village that take place at midnight and into the next day. Happy New Year to everyone and if you are celebrating tonight I hope you have some fun.