IML winter tree of the month 1:Norway Spruce

In preparation for my International Mountain Leader award winter assessment, I need to learn a lot more about the winter environment.  To help me do this I thought I would pick one tree a month to research and learn about and write a short blog post on.  Any comments or other facts would be much appreciated.

Lots of Noway Spruce trees in the Valais

What tree would come first other than the Norway Spruce (or Picea Abies to give it it's Latin name).  The 'Christmas tree' of the Alps, present everywhere, native to Europe and sometimes referred to as the Mountain Spruce.

Identification sheet from http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/softwoods/norway-spruce/  Note the different name at the bottom in Latin, there are in fact two Latin names for the Norway Spruce.

Identification

Height: up to 63m tall (50m in Scotland)

Needles: 15-25mm long, dark green with faint white lines on all sides, stiff, pointed and squared

Cones: up to 25cm long, slender, brown, 

Bark: 'coppery grey-brown'

Dark green upwards reaching branches with hanging foliage

Age: lives over 100 years

Norway Spruce, close up of needles and cone

Uses

Paper, construction, christmas trees - most notably in London and New York (although they shed their needles very quickly so are not as common now as they were), musical instrument sound boards.  Often planted in gardens as a wind break

Bark of a Norway Spruce tree

Fun facts

• Fast growning, up to 1m per year until around 20years old, low cost softwood, whitish colour timber and fast burner.
• Picea is thought to come from Pix meaning pitch.
• The resin was once used for Turpentine and pitch (for resin).
• It's fresh shoots were once used for making Spruce beer.
• Stradivarius apparently used old ship oars made from it for his violins
• Can withstand winds of up to 100mph as it's roots are deep and spreading
• For more information on the history of Christmas trees look here: http://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees

2014 photo summary

A quick summary of 2014, I've picked one photo per month.  Some of the photos are from previous blogs, others have be salvaged from my cavernous hard drive!

January

After a great New Year of work, Jim flew back out to the Alps to join me for a great ski holiday.

February

A busy time training and swatting up for my Teach and Technical Level 3 ISIA ski instructor exams.

March

Success and failure in exams as I passed my teaching exam, failed the technical exam, and in the process reinvented parts of my skiing and learnt loads.  Once back home in Snowdonia I took advantage of some time off to go exploring.

April

Our dawn patrol up Tryfan was definitely the highlight of April.

May

Survived a ski tour in horrendous weather in the Vanoise.  We will be returning in April 2015 for a rematch.

June

A busy month of work, but we managed to squeeze in a relaxing holiday to Pembroke.

July

Most of July was spent on expedition in Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan.  Spectacular scenery, successful trekking and great students.

August

After a short break at home in North Wales I headed to the Alps for some incredible trail running, hiking and flower spotting near Samoens.

September

After lots of revision and preparation I passed my International Mountain Leader award summer assessment.  It's not all about mountains though, the photo below is in the vegetable plot digging up potatoes, in preparation for our own veggie patch at home.

October

A month of work, climbing and all things house moving!  Although it is exciting to finally get a garden, it needs a lot of work too.

November

We moved house to a more permanent address, with a garden.  Here's to growing vegetables, being five minutes drive to the supermarket (as opposed to 20!), and having mobile phone reception indoors.  This was a mere week before driving out to the Alps for the ski season.

December

The Verbier ski season started with good pistes but little snow.  Most importantly, I finally managed to try out my new Haglofs Vassi ski outfit.

Here's to a great 2015, an exam free but ski touring full winter and a climbing packed summer.

Best powder days of the Verbier ski season so far

Since the recent snowfall hit the alps in the last month you can't seem to open Facebook or emails without seeing endless stories of avalanches or people shredding powder.  Each hour more photos of people enjoying themselves in the snow are uploaded and each hour my (and others I'm sure) FOMO - fear of missing out, increases.  The thing is though, within easy reach of the lifts I have only a few more ski lines that I really want to do, that will challenge me, and will still be there in many more years, waiting for the right avalanche and snow conditions.  At the moment, my primary focus is on trying not to get avalanched, and second to this is having fun.  Yes, you can have fun skiing powder at less than 30degrees!

Off piste at Savoleyres

In recent weeks there have been several well published deaths across the Alps, including in Verbier.  What has been less noticed are the amount of avalanches set off resulting in more minor injuries (most locally are published here http://www.policevalais.ch/communiques-pour-les-medias/nendaz-avalanche-hors-piste-un-blesse/ ).

Morning wintery views down the La Tzoumaz side

This, combined with some recent avalanche training last week, has made me rightly very cautious, and what our guide, Simon Hale said rings true 'the more you know about snow, the more you realise you don't know'.

Blue skies and mellow angled fresh tracks

So what did I get up to today on one of the best powder days of the ski season?  I headed to Savoleyres where the majority of the terrain is more mellow, and the few sections that aren't are well skied, very short and have good run outs.  The first few hours were spent skiing freshies on the pistes, followed by those on either side of the pistes, and lower down in the trees.  Until 10am there was still plently of powder to ski on the piste alone.  Following this was the entire Verbier side of untracked powder.  Avoiding the steeper rollovers (which commonly slide) you could ski almost directly back to the bottom lift station.  There is still the odd running stream around to keep you focused, and the occasional hidden rock and tree roots (double eject there!), but until mid afternoon it was soft and powdery the whole way.

Wind affected snow at Savoleyres, just one of many factors contributing to the avalanche hazard at the moment

And so, you can have a great day of safe skiing, despite the fact I would have loved to hit some other steeper parts, I did enjoy myself, and it's only the start of February.

Sun and snow at Les Ruinettes on Sunday

More statistics in addition to some useful snow information are available here http://www.slf.ch/praevention/lawinenunfaelle/index_EN