Tuesday, and we woke up to heavy snow ... around 15-30cms in Beaufort and very
low cloud ... thoughts of going up the road were quickly squashed when we saw
all the cars struggling even down in the town. So we had a lazy start, and then
went out for a walk- I had thought we could go down to the ski de fond area and
walk one of the trails - not that they were marked out in the new snow on the
green fields of the weekend.
The snow had eased off a little, as we walked through the town - dumping our
rubbish on the way.
Across the main car park, and we curved around to cross the stream coming down
from Areches. Taking note of the footpath up the other side - we almost rented a
chalet up there in place of the one in town.
Starting off on the road that had been ploughed through the houses and then
continued alongside a large open meadow.
Here we passed a group of snowshoers going the other way, so jumped into their
tracks across the meadows leaving the road. I cleared an area to measure the
depth of snow that had fallen overnight.
At the end of this first meadow we merged back onto the road at the point where
the plough had stopped.
Through the trees on the roadway still walking in others footprints, we came out
at the parc de loisirs - a kind of outdoor play area for all ages.
They even had an open toilet - it was a composting one with the conveyor system
- the last itme I saw one of these was on the Dix hut near Arolla.
After marvelling at this edifice we set off around the lake, making tracks in
the soft fluffy snow, all the way around to the exercise area.
Here we just had to try out each of the machines clearing the snow off the
relevant parts first. Finally back at the toilet we then headed back to Beaufort
the way we had come out.
The one change was we followed the ploughed road rather than crossing the meadow
as on the way out.
At the edge of the outer ring of houses we passed the marker for the start of
the ski de fond tracks - these were not pisted as yesterday everything would
have been green.
As we came closer to the town the snow began to fall once more with big heavy
flakes, and covering all the cleared areas. Although it did make for interesting
photos.
Back to the apartment for lunch and a warm up, after clearing the van
(apart from the roof) of the snow accumulation so far. Looking back from teh partment window showed how much had fallen in less than 30 mins!
