Two short videos of what happens when you give some Pinkies a copy of Hamlet....

Edit: Forgotten (until I watched it) that this one is just improv, but you knew that already right? ;)

Where I was skiing on Christmas Day. Jealous much? ;)

First of all, I have to apologise for that awful title... I couldn't resist (Here's where the reference is from, if you're wondering)

So yeah, I was back.... again. Pretty much the same as last year - 2 weeks, one week working, one week off. The big difference this year was the lack of guests. Unfortunately there were only 9 people booked on Ski Weeks, compared with about 200 last year. That meant I wasn't able to get any Ski Guiding this year, which is a real shame because it's possibly my favourite job at the Centre. No matter though, I still love being back and seeing all my friends :)

It meant that all of my work this year was in the Chalet, either in House (cleaning the Chalet) or Catering. Bit different to my normal Programme day. And a lot more tiring - big props to those who do it all day, every day.

Anyway, enough of my whining. Below are all of the photos I took (I know there's only a few - I kept forgetting to grab my camera). The first few are just from one of my lunch breaks skiing at Oeschinensee, and the rest are from A day off in Shilthorn.

I managed to get a quite a few lunch breaks and a day or two out, and the snow was pretty excellent most of the time. I really enjoyed skiing during Christmas Day lunch break - the snow was pretty nice, and I was skiing off-piste (which I'm still terrible at) with a few ridiculously good skiers. I didn't hit any trees which was a definite possibility. 

I also went to Shilthorn for the day - a resort best known for it's revolving restaurant at the top of the hill, as seen in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's right opposite the Eiger-Mönch-Jungfrau range which you can see in the background of some of the photos. It's not until you see the North Face properly do you really get a real sense of what it must be like. Truly awesome. The snow on the Shilthorn was epic. I genuinely lost my left ski for about 20 minutes after faceplanting (I told you I wasn't so good with the off-piste) just before I was about to pop back onto the piste. The off-piste area at Shilthorn is really nice, especially compared to where I've been most of my life (the 3 Vallées in France) where every inch of mountain is pisted to within an inch of it's life. My legs were pretty dead after a few hours of that...

Edit: Found a bunch more photos on my phone (so apologies for blurry-ness)

Thanks again KISC for being so damn awesome. Not sure when I'll next see you, but I'm already looking forward to it.

1st Finch (my group) just posted a "best of" set of photos on Flickr (all 500 of them):

Hmmm... not sure why the Flickr embed is not working - the link should work though!

So that's it for another summer, I'm back at home getting bored and wishing I was still in Kandersteg. I loved every moment of it, from working on the glacier to meeting a whole bunch of new friends. I've picked out some of my favourite photos from the whole season

I'm super lucky to have got the opportunity to have done some really fun and rewarding jobs while in this amazing place - working with groups who've never even seen a glacier, getting up to the Frundenjoch, hiking and climbing on my days off, getting a chance to show the other staff how awesome SnICE is, my group 1st Finch visiting and generally just hanging out with some really cool people.

I don't want to sound like an Oscar winner, but a few thanks are in order - firstly to Tom and Matt for giving the job in the first place! To Jemma, Kim and Mick for being the best SnICE team ever, and finally to all the rest of the Summer 2011 Staff for simply being awesome - I'm gonna miss you guys :)

I've got everything crossed hoping that they'll need my help in the winter, for the ski weeks because I loved that so much last winter. And after that, I'm not going back next summer (probably) but I'll be back sometime in the future....

Thanks once again KISC, you've been amazing.

I'm actually back home from Kandersteg now, but catching up on posts :)

On one of my last days at KISC I was hoping to do Balmhorn, the biggest peak in Kandersteg at 3698m, with another one of the staff - Kike from Spain. However, the weather foiled us with really low cloud and pouring rain all day. Unfortunately that means we couldn't do anything outside, and it felt like a waste to sit around all day.

So instead, we decided to go bouldering in Frutigen (the next town down the valley). Kike had been to this amazing place in the basement of a school back in 2009 during his season. I didn't really know what to expect but I really enjoyed myself and would love to go back sometime. 

We ended up going with a couple of the other staff - Big Dave (AU) and Brian (IE). The bouldering room was great, with some really challenging stuff. I started of by following a route that had grips in the shape of the alphabet, going from A to Z. This almost killed my arms as some of the moves were really quite hard. After this we had a crack at the awesome overhang, which I'm normally completely useless at. I'm pretty happy with myself as I managed to get the most of the overhang moves done.

A pretty good way to finish up my summer :)

Apologies for the quality of the pictures - my camera is really crap in the low light conditions.

I'm actually back home from Kandersteg now, but catching up on posts :)

Towards the end of the season my group, 1st Finchampstead, visited for a couple of weeks which was really awesome. It was great to see some familiar faces out there and to get to show the Scouts the wonders of Kandersteg.

One of the things I was looking forward to all season is a few of the group coming out on a Glacier Workshop with me. I really enjoyed taking them out onto the ice and showing them what I'd been doing all season. Some of the Scouts I've known since they were about 9, and they're really great kids so it was awesome to see them having such a great time. 

The group was staying in the Tower, which is at the end of the campsite. I think it's one of the better places to stay at KISC, especially for bigger groups like mine (we had 53 people staying). It's on the campsite but it has a really nice bunkhouse to stay in and a big communal area with a kitchen. Anyway, I got some pictures of the guys at dinner time (Izzy was really tired!).

Finally I've got some pictures from a hike up in the Gasternal valley (actually it much was a guided Gasternal hike). It was really good fun to take them up and show them around, and to see the real mountains. We also had some fun at Selden, messing around on the cool little bowling alley, trampoline and bouldering rock. 

I'm actually back home from Kandersteg now, but catching up on posts :)

This post is a little out of sequence - obviously it should have appeared during the middle of the summer...

1st August is Swiss National Day (see some of my pictures from last summer), and it's a bit special for the Snow & Ice Helpers as we have to be on duty and look after the running of the centre during the evening. I also had a bit more time off than I did last time, and managed to have a look around and see what the other Pinkies are doing and take some pictures. 

As you can see, the staff got special t-shirts this year (we were supposed to get some last summer, but the delivery didn't arrive until 3rd August!) which are particularly cool. You can see the "Reddies" running special silly games, stalls and activities, which we only do on 1st August. One of my jobs during the day was to run a Trivia Gameshow on the main stage, quizzing the Scouts on their knowledge of Switzerland and Scouting. Also, in case you're wondering why Tom (IE) is topless, it's because he was having the Swiss flag shaved into his hair...

In the evening, the entire camp and all the staff take part in a parade into the village. This is one of my favourite bits of the day, as the Scouts outnumber the village population. Unfortunately I didn't get to participate this year as I had to stay on duty back at the Centre. I did however manage to sneak out for a few minutes to watch the parade pass by my flat and take a few pictures. I'm afraid my camera is pretty bad in the low light conditions so most of the pictures are blurry.

I'm actually back home from Kandersteg now, but catching up on posts :)

Another bunch of pictures from one of my days off - this time a hike up to the Lammerenhutte. I'm slowly working through all the mountain huts on the map, and I've only got three left now - Gspaltenhornhutte, Bluemisalphutte and the Lohnerhutte. 

We (Malcolm (ZA), Sara (IT), Laura (UK) and me) first took the Sunnbuel cable car up and started hiking along the Gemmi valley to Daubensee, a fairly large and pleasant lake. The Gemmi is not particularly difficult or steep, but it is quite long - we only got to the end of the valley for about 1pm. Having lunch next to the lake was really nice, and we had a bit of a paddle and a play in the mud (which was really cool - it would stick to your feet then dry to become like a shoe).

From there we headed into the Lammeren valley and toward the Lammerenhutte itself. This was also fairly easy, but very pretty until we neared the hut. Then there was a pretty steep and exhausting climb up to 2502m. The hut is really quite big, especially compared to the Balmhornhutte, it also had some cool bits and pieces outside. These included a really long slack line and a pair of ice climbing practice tree trunks (I unfortunately forgot to take a picture). 

From the hut we headed back pretty much the same way we came up, but on the other side of the lake and got the last cable car down. All in all, a very nice day out. 

Yesterday was my day off, and so me and Sara (IT) - who was also a hike guide with me last summer - decided that we should go and find a nice hike to do. We from a couple of the other staff about Gasternspitz - which is on the ridge up to Balmhorn. The route goes up past Balmhornhutte (which I did the other day) and up a really awesome ridge towards Balmhorn. The views up to Balmhorn we amazing and also into the Gasterntal valley - you can see all the of the Kanderfirn and Petersgrat which is part of the Snow & Ice Expedition that I run. Supposedly you can also get down onto the Lotschenpass, but we had a look at the path (it's the seventh picture in this set) and decided that you'd have to be insane to go down there....

The picture at the end you can just about see the peak - the little pointy one right in the middle.

One of the activities that I run as a Snow & Ice Guide is the Snow & Ice Expedition (formerly known as the Petersgrat Expedition), where we take groups up and over the Kanderfirn Glacier to stay at the Mutthornhutte, then over the Petersgrat ridge the next day. These photos are actually from two separate Expeditions that I ran, but I thought I'd combine them as the pictures are pretty similar.

The first one that I have pictures from is actually the first Expedition that I successfully managed to get to the hut - we often have to cancel this hike due to the weather - and so I decided that I wanted to go up the Mutthorn before dinner at the hut. The Mutthorn is a fairly small ridge at the end of the Kanderfirn, and the hut sits at the bottom of it. I got some awesome pictures which really show the scale of the Kanderfirn, although the weather could have been a bit nicer :)

On the second Expedition we had a lot nicer weather - possibly the best of the summer so far, and so I took a lot of pictures on the way up and at the hut. The big mountain that you can see looking back down the glacier is Balmhorn (3698m), the biggest peak in the Kandersteg area. Hopefully I'll get to do that before the end of the season...

At the hut there are some impressive views all around - the mountain that I am "holding up" is the back side of the Eiger, to the right of it is the Jungfrau. Supposedly the back side of the Eiger is the "easy" way up, but from the looks of things its pretty impossible.

Finally I got some pictures at the top of the Petersgrat ridge, looking down into the Lotschental valley, and beyond into the "real" Alps - the really big peaks. Also we had some fun in the snow up there - the group wer pretty cool and we took some good pictures. The final two pictures are from a little ice cave just where we get off the ice - lots of cool stalactites.