After labelling 2018 as a black year for Chamonix in my previous blog post, there was a collective sense of nerves as the winter season approached…
Kingsley Jones: Alpine Diary, part 7 – Land of Rock and Fire
You’d be excused for thinking this was a blog about Iceland, with a title of ‘Land of Rock and Fire’, but no, it’s a Chamonix and alpine conditions update!
Kingsley Jones: Alpine Diary, part 6 – Summits, Snow and Sunburn
As a Canadian mountain guide pithily said after his stint of work in Chamonix, “I leave for Canada tomorrow, with my crampon points rounded, and my elbows sharpened”. His words were said in jest, sort of, but there’s quite an element of truth to them…
Kingsley Jones: ‘Alpine diary, part 5 – Cold from the East’
Polar Vortices and the North Atlantic Oscillation weren’t vocabulary in the forefront in my brain just a month ago, but having worked the last month in the Alps, with temperatures dipping to -28C, I feel overly well acquainted with the Beast from the East…
Kingsley Jones: ‘Alpine diary, part 3 – Snowmageddon!’
‘Avalanche hits forty chalets in Les Houches’, screams the headline of the Dauphiné Libéré, about yesterday’s avalanche into the Chamonix valley, at the foot of Mont Blanc in the French Alps.