What a day

The met maps for today showed most of the alps looking really good so we packed our passports and

toothbrushes and launched early.

5 of us headed North via Pic de Bure and crossed direct from 7500' to the slopes near Guillaume. We arrived fairly low but a bit of perseverance with the ridge lift and therms got us up to 8500'and away to Tete d'Amont and 10,000'.

We continued North over Bradonecchia, Sollieres and turned right to go up over Tignes at 12,000'. We made our first turn at Ferret, between Blanc and Aoste and crossed over the ski resort of Verbier to the North of the Sion valley. A pair of impressive eagles marked the climb and helped us out. The valley scenery here had changed markedly - much more Swiss precision in the layout of meadows! We ran East past Sion and Turtmann until it was 4 p.m. and we were something like 260kms out from Serres. The temptation to go further was strong as ahead things looked well formed and the valley made a very obvious route but the cost of the aerotows home was starting to look rather pricey - so we turned for home. The initial thought was to go back the way we'd come but the South side of the valley near the Grand Combin had a high cloudbase and we decided to head over there.

Another swift and helpful conversation with ATC at Sion and we were on the South side and once up and back as a group were up in the high snow fields. What a privilege to be amongst such scenery - absolutely stunning stuff with some ridge soaring of peaks up at 12,000': surreal. We flopped over into the Aoste valley and then pretty much retraced our steps home with little drama. After 8 and a half hours we landed back tired but happy.