The Scottish Dinner Meet was held at the Balavil Hotel in Newtonmore over the weekend 23rd - 25th Jan. There was snow down to road level and good touring on the Saturday (albeit very windy) with several parties ascending Carn Dearg in the Monadhliath.

This weekend was a training weekend based at Glenmore Lodge. On the Saturday the forecast was for gusts of 100mph wind, wind chill of minus 20c and an avalanche warning of Category 4 on southern slopes over 700m, so we decided to do a lower level ski tour from the lodge to Stac na h-lolaire (742m), via Ryvoan Bothy where we stopped for a hot drink to warm us up. Wild weather and some complex terrain to navigate through still made for a challenging day out even on a lower peak. Sunday was a really useful training day at Cairngorm with excellent instruction from Roy Henderson.

Weekend in Glen Lyon 13/15th Feb in 2 self catered houses located in Glen Lyon with 20 Munros along its watershed, 13 of these within 10km of the house. Valley based but, snow permitting, 3 hill roads running to 500m.

February long weekend

The Haute Route Ossola runs along the Swiss – Italian border in the Lepontine Alps to the West of Andermatt - just to the south of the better known Tour Soleil. This club tour, traversing from the Simplon Pass to Val Bedretto, took place 14th – 22nd March 2015. A big dump of snow early in the week meant that a couple of days had to be missed out (taking the bus from the Simplon Hospiz to the Castiglioni hut), but this snow gave excellent powder skiing later in the week. The Italian huts were very friendly, had great food, but were very quiet – we saw very few other skiers.

March/April tour in the Benasque area of the Pyrenees. The early section in the Aneto-Maladeta range was thwarted to some extent by bad weather but a circuit of the Posets massif taking in the summits of three 3000m mountains was ample reward.  

The Argentière Weekend Meet was held over the weekend of 5th to 7th February 2016, with members  arriving and leaving at various times from the preceding Thursday until the following Tuesday. Most people stayed at the comfortable Hôtel de La Couronne in the centre of Argentière, which provided après ski tea and cakes. The weather was a little mixed, so touring opportunities were a bit limited, but on the Saturday a large number of parties ascended Pointe Ronde (2700m) over the border in Switzerland. The focal point of the weekend was dinner on Saturday night at Le Dahu in Argentière.

This off-piste training meet was held 5th – 12th March 2016, based at the Hotel de Moiry in Grimentz. The week was blessed with superb weather and great snow from the previous week which remained in condition. The group was split into three and had two days each with Tom Saxlund (BASI), Pete Miles (BASI) and Graham Frost (IFMGA) - focussing on improving off-piste skills and doing some great day tours in this lovely area.

Touring choices limited by deep fresh powder, we sought out safe places to enjoy it. And how!

A visit to Japan primarily for off-piste skiing and touring on the Island of Hokkaido.