Mark Warren had chosen a splendid day for participants, 7 of us in all. The conditions were nye-on perfect. Cold, no wind, bright sun, deep powder and a fine hike in prospect up Grand Mt Rond (GMR) and back over petit.
Marks W and W, David, Richard, Steve, Mervyn and Peter attended with apologies from Drew, Rob and Philip.
We assembled and set off from the Col de la Faucille where every establishment and lift including the loos were shut up and boarded in this time of pandemic. Nevertheless there were quite a few folk out and about, including herds of tiny French tots on snow shoes, as well as many others on raquettes and back-country skiers, with a not un-small number of happy dogs (when he grows up next year Kobie is coming!). It wasn’t long before we were stepping gently up the forest trail in fir trees covered in sparkling powder and before long the tiny tots were left behind and we were out in the paradise of a Jura winter and into the glare of a fine sun.
It is fair to say that most of us reflected afterwards that this had been a best-ever and indeed magnificent temperance outing on snowshoes, certainly of recent times. This may have been due to short memories, or partly the fantastic conditions and views and partly due to the numbers of bottles of wine we consumed with social distancing on the top of GMR, accompanied by sandwiches, digestifs and coffee, all of which followed Richard’s Grappa surprise. We toasted absent friends, perhaps several times, as well as fraternising with a pair of Geneva old-timers who had somewhat absent-mindedly forgotten to bring alcohol to the summit. The only thing missing was a bar (to be remedied if we can find a lightweight portable one on the internet from China). Duly sated we flowed down the creamy thick, crystal powder of GMR and cruised across to the Petit Mt Rond amazed by the snow formations on the trees and cornices. After a full team photo shoot on a wooden bar (too small for our future use) we then slid back down the unpisted ski-run of PMR, some of us prostrated on poly-bags.
A truly memorable and staggering day. Thanks to Mark Warren for organising such a day of perfect conditions and raising the bar. Looking forward to many more. Onwards to vaccinations.
But not in quite such surreal conditions
Wonderful! What a gift for summiting it up! Santé. Creak on, young man!