You can really feel it's the end of the season. The Arve river which flows down the Chamonix valley being fed by the glaciers and snow fields in the mountains above is really flowing strongly now from the increase in temperature melting the ice and snow.
The Arve river flowing through Chamonix.
The picture is taken just 5 seconds form our office.It's weird, even as a kid I've always been interested in how nature changes and why things work and what happens when climactic conditions vary. Being out here I've learnt lots more about the science of snowpacks (and therefore avalanches) as well as rock and glacial formations - for safer mountaineering, climbing and backcountry. It's cool because you can see it all happening around you rather than just having it pointed out in a book in a classroom. You actually feel the weight of the snow on the mountains and are amazed by the impressive stature of the glaciers all around. It's really inspiring to pay attention and learn.So the river's evolved over the course of the season from the start - an icy trickle with boulders covered in snow - then slowly shaping up to a small torrent and subsequently building up into a full flowing alpine river. Its character changes almost daily and I always find myself walking across one of the many bridges in town looking down at the river and trying to work out how much of the snowpack has changed to make it swell or if cold has made it reduce or if there are other underlying meterological conditions. We went through the Col des Montets towards Switzerland the other day - a small valley that leads from Chamonix towards the border. There were crystal clear alpine streams from the meltwater running through and I couldn't help but be reminded of living in Germany and going to the Austrian Alps as a child and still feeling the same peaceful happiness now as I did then when looking at their fast flowing tendrils down the valley.
The other day a mate, Andy Crampons, was doing the Vallee Blanche (riding down from the Aiguille du Midi) - he was with 3 mates doing a variant route down rather than the Classic Route. The Vallee Blanche is a well known 22km off-piste run mostly down a series of glaciers. When doing it, if you don't know what you're doing you should definitely definitely get a guide and you should really have all the proper equipment - harness, crampons, rope, climbing/rescue devices as well as all the rest of the bits and bobs. After traversing across one of the glaciers that you ride down, they happened upon a guy standing with no skis on next to a 1m hole.The guy was standing there, apparently talking English to himself. So naturally the boys stopped and inquired if all was OK. The guy's son had fallen into a crevasse but the father said he was happy about pulling him out by himself with the rope he had brought along. What had essentially happened was that he and his son had been skiing along down the glacier and decided to stop for a picnic in a spot that looked safe (!! - on a glacier that's covered with hidden crevasses??). Dad took off his skis and promptly put his foot straight through a snow bridge (a bridge of fallen snow over a crevasse that can be 1 snowflake thick or maybe tens of metres thick or even more) which collapsed under the weight of his son and thence he fell. Monkeys.They had some of the gear, but Crampons et al were in no mood to argue and put their crevasse rescue training to good use and promptly hauled matey's son out of said crevasse whereupon he grabbed hold of his Dad's leg and starting shaking a bit - understandable under the circumstances really.Matey's lack of skis were a bit of an issue really, what with being stranded in the middle of a glacier with collapsing snow bridges all around. So they called in the rescue chopper and got him and his son lifted off the mountain.Weirdly enough, Crampons went for a quick beer after skiing in Le Delice, our local bar/restaurant run by Katy, an old school friend of mine and her partner Fred. Crampons saw matey and son there enjoying a calming ale after the near-death experience of the day. He obviously said hello but by all accounts they were both a little sheepish and thankful to still be together so he left them to it and arrived up at the farmhouse (he lives below Andy and I in the lower section of the house). He came up and told us about his exciting day and how he came across this pair and yanked them out of trouble.A little later and my housemate Andy and myself whisked ourselves down to Le Delice for a beer. Fred was working behind the bar and as Andy and I had been talking about what had happened on the VB today, I immediately turned to Fred and in far too loud a voice said "HEY FRED, I HEARD CRAMPONS WINCHED TWO F***ING IDIOTS OFF THE VALLEE BLANCHE TODAY". A rather pregnant pause later, Fred says quietly "yeah, it was those two in the corner" and pointed to a young guy and his dad obviously still in the bar trying enjoying a bite to eat. Bugger - the monkey strikes again. They didn't stay long.Maybe it was a little harsh to laugh about their near-death experience but to be honest everyone's got stories of monkeys on the mountains. Guys with little or no clue or experience about where they are and what the environment is really like. We laugh about it but in all honesty if you don't you're likely to go mad. We're all careful about where we ride and what the conditions are like but by the same token we've got more than average experience in the mountains and have all done courses in crevasse rescue, climbing, avalanche awareness, advanced skiing/snowboarding. Many of us have a speciality area as well with extremely good climbers, off piste riders, experienced mountaineers and more making up the groups. Plus we wear the right gear when riding serious backcountry or whenever there's the idea of riding above extremely low risk terrain.Saying that though, I don't think it helps when some monkey takes the piss after nearly binning it on the mountain.
The walk from Aiguille du Midi to start the Vallee Blanche.
So I've moved house a couple of days ago! And thought I'd post up some photos of the new place as well as say hello.As mentioned in my previous blog posting, I've moved to Les Houches - a small village just outside of Chamonix. The house is an old farmhouse high up on one of those zig-zag country lanes that rise up from the village, in fact we're about 1200m along the road after it leaves Les Houches to climb upwards. We live at somewhere around 4,500 feet above sea level!The farmhouse is actually owned by a mate who's rented the top half out for some time now, and luckily my housemate and I have managed to secure the place for the next year - banzai!So here it is:
The farmhouse.Inside there's a few bedrooms and quite a lot of space - it's pretty big. Unfortunately there's no real central heating so much of the heat comes through the wood burning stove in the lounge and there's a few electric heaters around the place. It does get a bit nippy sometimes but foraging down into the lower reaches of the duvet soon sorts that out. There's currently no washing machine either so often I'll find Andy's washing in the kitchen sink! Good news is that the landlord's going to stick one in and Andy and I can put our cash together and buy a dishwasher.
The kitchen.
The living room with wood-burning stove, Chris in the far corner, Jonny Slippers (both paying a passing visit) and Andy's legs.My room is pretty damn cool. It's got one of the beams going through it that support the house. I'm pretty stoked to be honest as the whole thing is wood-pannelled as well. Really mint - looks like the inside of a sauna! I've also got a tv with an XBox/dvd player so I can watch movies and play games. The whole place has got a 10MB wireless interweb connection as well.
My room with TV, XBox and a couple of boards.
The rest of my room with the balcony and pillar support. More boards on the left!The best thing about living there is the remoteness - away from everyone and everything just being able to live a pretty minimal peaceful existance. There's balconies all around the place, and this is the view from mine.
Looking up the valley towards Chamonix with the Grands Montets mountain the most prominent. Mont Blanc is just around to the right.We've even got a dog, Digby, roaming around on a lead. 
Digby the Dog.All in all, very cool. Along with Merv the Swerve, my P plated white Renault van, all is going better and starting to really settle in here. I've been recommended for a contract that I can work on out here by a mate in London which is ongoing development work for a dance music website as well as another contract for a local produce ordering website. With these under my belt that will provide really quite a good standard of life out here. Everything seems to be coming together now. Really stabalising and in a couple of months time I should be settled in properly and will be awaiting the summer with relish.I've talked a lot with Andy about doing the Haute Route - 180km high-mountain walk from Chamonix to Zermatt in Switzerland. Essentially from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn. It's a pretty serious undertaking but in good weather the views and rewards will be fantastic. I guess it's a legacy of my Dad taking us out to the Alps when we were kids. I remember walking around the mountains surrounding the Ossiachersee in the Austrian Alps when I was young and it was loads of fun. Admittedly I'm carrying a little more weight than then, but I've lost around a stone and a half since I've been here and feel fit and pretty lean. I'm sure that I'll slim down even further in due course with the summer sports calendar that's rearing its head. For the moment, though, I've found I'm noticably fitter than most of the people I hike and ride with and it's always pleasing to look fit and healthy.So all in all I'm a pretty happy bunny. I've only had one real low period since I've been here and I hope with all the fresh air and activity both mental and physical as well as not living in a manic ski resort anymore it should mean that those times will be few and far between. I certainly hope so.I'm working on a mashup of GPS tracking and google maps at the moment so you can see information and routes plotted onto an actual map in real time. It's pretty cool and we're extending it up so that we can get all the information for Chamonix and the surrounding area on there as well. It's looking really good and it's great to be producing some really cool stuff. I'm hooking it into our advertising model as well so it'll be another part of the revenue stream and we've more people joining us to sell the advertising too so all in all, it's looking very healthy for the future of chamonix-valley.com our flagship business here. Game on!
