Here we are now, in ChampoResortsluc, swimming in the snow sometimes without a chance to get off. Bartolomeus, 15, is trying to pull himself out the snow masses after a drop, but ends up swimming on the board as a surfer in the waves: no point in getting on your feet, you just disappear and your pals need a shovel to get you off again. If they don't just leave you there till springtime...

Yes, Monterosa has far more snow the most other villages in the Alps, I believe, this season. Villages are cut off or even evacuated, and the slopes are not always open, caused by avalanche danger. But it is enough with the open ones, really.

The warm weather of the last days has made the snow heavy and the off pist nothing for weaklings!