PART II : Please read the post below first!

So where was I..... ahh yes, the beer on the Finsteraarhorn hut balcony. So the View:

The next day we woke up with great intentions of climbing up something big (the Finstereerhorn at over 4,200m), but when we looked out the window the weather had other ideas. We spent the day in the hut playing cards, looking at maps and sleeping. We did go out briefly for a little ski up the glacier but we got about 500m up the galcier and decided that it really was not worth it.

You can decide for yourselves what you would have done with the weather like it was... and the ground full of holes...

So waking up the next day and discovering the weather was not likely to clear for some time, we decided it was time to start think about how we were to get out of the high mountains. We decided to take the famous route down the Langgletscher. So we went up over a col...Down the other side and then we were faced with the feet ruining skin up to the HollandiaHutte. Here is Lara at the bottom of the descent from the col and starting her way along to the hut.

From the above picture you can see our skin along the Grosser Aletscherfirn glacier. The Hollandia refuge is on the right shoulder of the col in the far distance. To give you a sense of perspective from where Lara is standing it is 8km to the refuge, the glacier is over 2km wide in some places and it took us 3 hours to get to it. By the time we got there Dave's feet where rather sore and there was a distinct need for beer! So once again we finished our day with the traditional beer and Rosti.

The next day was to be our last in the high mountians, the hut was at 3300m and we had to ski down the glacier to a town called Blatten at 1400m to catch the train back roound to Grindelwald. What a descent! A fantastic way to finish a great week up in the mountains. I would love to show you some pictures of the descent but somehow we managed to loose the memory card with them on (no prizes for guessing who put it in the wrong place!!)

So since then we have been back in Gap doing the odd day tour here and a day biking there. Miles went home today (thus having the time to update this). Thank you Miles for your great company and taking pictures of us together!

So now we are waiting again for the weather to clear up a bit to be able to go up into the Parc Des Ecrins for some more skiing, the snow is disappearing fast. Lara has picked up a cold so it is a good time to rest a little and catch up with things before heading off again.

So expect some silly pictures over the next few days...