8/3/09 (Pally)
On leaving Bormio, myself and Jamie had a day to kill before a trip to Meribel in France (where we are now) with a new online snowsports show called White World. We’d always wanted to check out the much talked about valleys just north of Aosta, so with it being on Route we headed towards Gressoney La Trinite where we planned to meet up with Kiwi ripper Sam Smoothy who was going to drive over from Verbier in the morning. With heavy snow having just stopped falling, things were looking good.!

Quite how heavy the snow had fallen, we didn’t know. It appeared the western side of the Alps had been getting pounded, and the number of road closures due to avalanches across them or the risk of potential slides was phenomenal. Infact , we were unable to get to Gressoney that night, having been halted by a huge slide that had cut it off from, the rest of the valley. The road was cleared by morning, but sadly Smoothy had been unable to cross over from Switzerland due to the passes being shut.

On the upside, the Monterosa ski area turned out to be sick, and buried in snow! The pillow and mini golf terrain here is some of the best we’ve ever seen, and we managed to ski a few nice lines before the sun started turning most of the snow to snot (damn the spring!)