At 9:00am there was a knock on my door – Rob was outside dressed for skiing and wanted to know if I was coming. We had some great snow fall last week but it had warmed on Friday and it seemed to be melting quickly. I dragged myself out of bed however, and 5 of us took off towards the repeater on the Duse ridge with all the requisite avalanche gear.

I really shouldn’t have been out as I was still sick but how could I not! As the snow was Sierra cement in nature and it was threatening to rain I decided to stay with Ali and Sam on the first part of the plateau and try to teach Sam how to ski. She did a good job considering the snow conditions but in the end decided it was easier to walk down the hill. Ali also did a good job only coming to a halt when he hit a hidden rock – the contrast was poor. I am trying to relearn how to ski on my new skis which are very wide and also longer than I am use to.

When I told mum we went skinning she thought I had mispelt skiing but no skinning is when you put skins on the bottom of your skis so you can go uphill – as of course here we don’t have ski lifts.

Dinner was Saturday night at Carse house cooked by Ruth and Maureen. A splendid feast with delicious profitta rolls for dessert.