Autumn has arrived in the French Alps

In theory, I am led to believe, here in the Northern hemisphere Autumn begins around September22. This is the date of the Autumnal equinox, whatever that means. According to the reference in Wikipedia an equinox is  'when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun, the centre of the Sun being in the same plane as the Earth's equator'. Right, cleared that up then.

Anyway, here is a photo from the back of ski Chalet Martin in Meribel le Raffort and taken today, 4 days after the start of Autumn. Equinox or no equinox, it is pretty clear that Autumn has indeed started, we can see the leaves are changing colour.

There are other changes we are noticing at the moment, notably the days and nights are getting cooler, and ....  the high peaks are starting to hold snow after recent falls. The snow line is still above the upper slopes of Meribel and La Tania, of course, but it does show promise for this time of year.

The 2012-2013 ski and snowboard season in Courchevel gets under way in a little over 70 days, Meribel and La Tania will be a week later. This is before the real Winter even starts which, as we all know, is December 21 - the date of the Southern Solstice ...

As a skier, it is hard not to get excited when clouds lift and you can see snow on mountains that were green just the day before. Even at this time of the year when it has little or no influence on the season ahead it gets you thinking about the Winter and what it has in store.

That was the treat we had yesterday. In the afternoon I was busy with some small maintenance jobs in Chalet Martin , Aiden our 3 year old son(part human/part monster) was downstairs with Anne as the children don't go to school on a Wednesday. Sometime in the late afternoon Anne shouted out 'take a look oot the windae' (not really, she said 'take a look out the window'). Outside it had been a miserable day up to that point so I had an idea of what was in store. I stopped doing whatever it was that I was doing at the time and went to the window in the family room to look outside.

It was stunning, a hole had formed in the clouds and I had a perfectly framed view of Saulire, the peak that sits above Meribel  and Courchevel. I have seen it with snow on thousands of time before but as I have already said it is nice to see white slopes that were green just the previous day.

This is our second covering of snow in the last couple of weeks but as with the previous fall, we do not expect it to lie on the ground for long at this time of year. That's a good thing really as I have cyclists coming in to Chalet Grange a Charlotte on the weekend and they may not share my enthusiasm.

Fantastic ski conditions at Mt Hutt, NZ

I have just been looking at the official website for the Mount Hutt ski area in New Zealand and it would appear they are going to have an amazing end of season.

Anne and I met in Methven, the base town for the Mt Hutt ski area, in the mid 90's, when we both worked there. Altogether I spent 8 ski seasons in Methven/Mt Hutt, driving shuttles for most of that period. It is obviously a lot different to what we have here in Meribel and La Tania, but I still have fond memories of the area. It is well known in that part of the world for being affected by the very strong Nor'west winds that regularly blow, often forcing the area to close. For all the problems the wind can cause it can also create some amazing conditions, especially where the wind has blown through places like 'The Towers' leaving areas of wind blown powder.

As I recall, September  was very often a good month for skiing at Mt Hutt, different to most of the other areas in the South Island that enjoyed better conditions in July and August. Right now the website is claiming an average snow base of just over 2metres which sounds excellent and will create superb conditions across the whole mountain, it would be nice to be there right now.