Kevin Whitworth / Jacurutu

After some of the things we got up to in Val D'Isere and Tignes, this news story kind of brings it back home what the risks are. Further coverage says it was close to the Col du Palet, one of the areas we were playing in last week.

This makes you realise that even when messing around between pistes it's probably worth carrying avalanche transceivers and rescue kit. Be careful out there.

My thoughts go out to the friends and family of those killed.

Apart from taking pictures of the Audi Ice Party, we did actually do some snowboarding whilst out in Val D'Isere. I'll get the photos sorted properly and onto the album soon (maybe at the weekend), but in the meantime I've put some of the best ones (or at least, the ones which don't need editing) onto Flickr.

Take a look at the Val D'Isere set for a sneak preview. The photo on the right shows one of the routes we did - which involved climbing through the Aiguille Percee complete with boards (but nothing useful like axes or crampons). Complete insanity, but what a buzz!

SCUK (Snowboard Club UK) reported that on Tuesday 7 February a fire consumed Cybar, Dick's T-Bar and the Bar du Moulin in Chamonix. Fortunately, it appears tht no-one was hurt. A bit spooky, seeing as we were there only a couple of weeks before.

More reports are available from Chamonet.com and Natives.co.uk.

I've now got the first lot of photos from our recent snowboarding trip to Chamonix. These are all taken with my Minolta G400 - I'm still working on the Nikon photos from the Aguille du Midi, so watch this space.