Well, we’ve nipped over to Saas Fee for a week of race training with Amanda and had a brilliant day. We’re skiing at about 3500m down to 2500m (equivalent of  about 150m  higher than Mont Fort down to Cabane Mont Fort if you know Verbier well) and the snow is really impressive – and so are the skis…

Tobes and I have got two pairs of rand spanking new Elan GS skis and all I can say is leave your home or office now, find a ski shop and buy a pair. The most fun you can have on the piste.

Meanwhile here are couple of shots of Tobes and Kent. Kent is the one grinning. Always…

So we haven’t had much snow over the last week or so but the skiing really isn’t bad. skied with my sister for a good 3 hours. Defiantly worth a slide. Performance away week in Saas Fee starts tonight. Check the blog for updates and videos. – Toby

• There's a rumour that TeleVerbier won't open this weekend after the rain earlier this week – Lac des Vaux might not be looking too well… G #
• Relax – TeleVerbier have put an update on their site and say they'll open Lac des Vaux, but not Attelas – Ruinettes. Which is a relief… G #

I’m not a reactionary person. I like a bit of over-the-top enthusiasm when it comes to snow falls, but hopefully nothing too knee-jerk.

For example loads of people have been saying that the recent falls were here to stay and that the season was going to be another massive one. At the Ski Show they were forecasting a terrible winter. But all based on what?

Naturally we all get over-excited from time to time, but we do tend to forget that the winter doesn’t just rock up on the first of November then get switched off in April. It can snow in August. It often does. It can be 20 degrees Celsius in February. And sometimes it snows a load, we all get a bit giddy, then it goes away and we all feel mortified.

Doesn’t mean it’ll be a rubbish season. Doesn’t mean it’ll be an amazing one. It’s just not very cold in town right now and the snow’s gone.

But at some point between now and April it’ll dump with snow.

Loads of it.

So what if it rained VERY high last night? All the snow in town’s gone and the Savoleyres ridge is losing it’s snow quicker than some of us are losing our hair. But that’s just today. It could all change. It could snow. It could get worse and rain loads again. But we’ll definitely get more snow this year, and when it comes we’ll forget about rain at Atalas and warm fronts and foehn winds and El Nino and everything else.

So chin up. And cross your fingers…

Just got down from a little cruise around with Kato and the pistes are looking surprisingly better than last weekend – and it wasn’t bad then.

The run to Ruinettes is now officially open and whilst if you look really closely you’ll see the odd stone lurking there waiting to trip you up, it’s actually in really good condition. It seems the combination of fresh snow (buckets of rain in resort) and having the canons on has done the trick and piste conditions are really good.

So now it’s just the usual sweepstake on when we open all week long. My money’s on a week on Monday.

Cold, clear. Above average, really.