Il Bosco e la Neve, Valle di Pesio, 19 Feb 2006

The 3rd Trip of the 55th SUCAI Scialpinsmo course (2005/06) was driven south to the Alpes Maritime (Italian side, www.vallepesio.it) due to high avalanche risk in the rest of the Western Alps.

Conditions underfoot were lousy at the start, scraping our way across hard snow littered with leaves, twigs and chestnut cases, but it started snowing hard half way up, and after ascending La Gardiola dalla Certosa in the clouds, the conditions on the way down were soft, deep and pretty much perfect - with thunder and lightning, much to everyone's surprise (this photo of Mimi the Van de Graaf generator says it all...)







...and it snowed all the way back to Torino. Certosa (the car park) was idyllic in the snow:







More photos from the trip on www.sucai.it/immagini/xpdition/2006-02-19_cima_la_gardiola/index.html
and www.skakko.it/montagna/scheda_gita.asp?num_gita=28.