Just to make Travis jealous...

All is the pics! :D

But unfortunately, the ice was a bit wet, so I've been lame and didn't lead anything... But we top roped a relatively technical and fun one, with light and brittle ice formations. The lead would have been bold... There were some ice screws placements, most of them hollow...

PS: Oh yeah, it was the first time that Oliver was ice climbing, and I have been mean to send him in a hard climb (grade 5+ or so)... But he looks happy, doesn't he?

First paragliding fligth :)

We went to the Charmey skifield with my flatmate, Mickael. He was participating to a fun paraglading contest, while I skied. For his last flight, he asked me if I wanted to go for a biplace fligth, and obviously I couldn't say no... As it was part of a contest, we went pretty close from the ground, and even touch it a couple of times, it was a lot of fun! Many thanks Mickael* for the run!

The following day, we went skiing at Chateau d'oex with Olivier&Julie, and I discovered how skiing in powder is... difficult! But it is soft, and tastes good... when you fall...

* I don't know if I should thank you, actually... I want to buy a paraglider and to pass the licence now... Do you think I have enough time and money??? :)

Some more cool pics from some friends of Mickael:

Alpine touring trip in the Queyras (Italy)

The aim: 4 days of ski touring
The place: Chianale, in the Italian side of the Queyras mountains
The actors: Jerome&Gaelle, Etienne, Denis, Murielle, Emilie, and me!

Not much to say: brilliant weather for the 4 days, perfect terrain for ski touring, good snow for snowboarding (not that good for skiing, apparently...). And best of the best, our accomodation: the most welcoming bed&breakfast ever, with excellent Italian food, and the friendliest landlady you can imagine. And it's even cheap! I highly recommend to stay there if you are in the region, ask me the address if you need.

The negative point was (thanks to Titi ;-) ) the illness of a couple of people, which was a real shame... I guess it's a good reason to come back there sometime in spring, when the snow conditions would be perfect!

Thats all for now!

And some backcountry skiing, near Grenoble :D

Oh yeah, and there is the snowy stuff as well, I had to deserve all that food... The snow was not the best I had ever*, but it was good to catch back with Djé&Gaelle, to meet Murielle, to see Caroline having a hard time because of gear problems... And it was so good to be in the sun above the "sea of clouds", when the valleys were stuck in a thick and cold fog!!! Thanks to Titi for the accomodation, all the driving, and the 3 days of skiing!

* oui oui, Donn, je rale, comme Titi... Mais je profite!!!

PS: the last pic was taken by mistake with the wrong mode, but very luckily is not that bad, I think...

1.80m of Christmas log :p

The Linards from Fontaine Les Gres joined us at the last minute for the Xmas lunch. Annette said she will bring the Christmas log for dessert, and arrived the 25th with 120cms of it... The thing is that we still had the one from my sister, which we failled to eat the previous day, because of the cheese fondue (see previous post). So we had 180cms of cake, which strangely we didn't manage to finish...

I add 2 photos of my nephew Armand, in the middle of a sea of gifts, and enjoying opening/destroying them! Childs are too much spoiled with presentsnowadays, I reckon... I wasn't the same back in the days... Am I jealous???

Various states of a "pumpkin" cheese fondue

I came back to my parents place just before Xmas with full backpacks full of Swiss chocolate... and Swiss cheese from the Fribourg region! These later are supposed to make the best cheese fondue in Switzerland, even in the world if you listen the Fribourgeois... I don't know if it is true, I can tell you it's better than the cheese fondue with New Zealand cheeses, hehe. I tried one more time the pumpkin recipe, and it was damned good! Here are a few pics of the evolution/destruction of the pumpkin during the evening...

Various climbing failures...

In the last two weekend, we tried to do some climbing with my buddy Oliver, with not a lot of success... No success at all, should I say...

First, we tried last week to climb at La Tribune, in Charmey. It's a fantastic crag, with about 80 overhanging routes, on excellent limestone. Some people told us that is a good winter crag, as generally above the valley fog. What we didn't know was that the crag needs a few days to dry after a snowfall, and the rock was wet on most of the routes... Maybe a few grade 8+ (above NZ grade 30) were climbable. Being weak, we passed, and decided to go to a climbing gym... The first we tried was closed because that was a public holiday, so we made the drive to Bern, thinking the local gym would be opened, as it was not a public holiday there. But it was opening only at 5pm on Mondays... So we came back to Fribourg, and had a coffee at Belvedere, with its fantastic terrasse. We ended up, like miserable people, bouldering at our usual wall, after 6 hours of wandering around...

The weekend after, we wanted to go ice climbing with Oliver, at Chateau d'Oex (even in French this name is difficult to say!). We spent almost 3hours to find the route, which was made of only running water... Again, we've been big girls, and didn't climb... And guess what, we finished the day at our usual climbing gym in Fribourg, for a change...

OK, not all i bad in Swizzy, I still managed to have 2 days of snowboarding in great powder conditions, fantastic conditions for December!!!