Where's the mountain? and Mer de Glace!

Zipped through my presentation without a hitch - went a bit quick though so didn't quite fill the 2 hours - the audience and organizers weren't too fussed though - wanted to get skiing I think! While Morfar took the kids to their lessons, Jen, Cynthia, Mormor and I threw on the gear and stepped out the door to explore the Brevet - Legere adjacent our hotel. Weather looked a bit dodgy towards the top but seemed better than yesterday at first glance. Straddling that fine line between bravery and stupidity we decided to head up the chair called Cornu which takes you to the top of the Cornu Piste - one we avoided yesterday due to the visibility issues and harder runs for the kids. As we approached the top the clouds seemed to close in on us as if we were being smothered with cotton wool. Jen was not impressed as her visual cues essentially keep her upright. Needless to say there wasn't much 'visual' at all as we descended a seriously steep pitch on feel alone - you could just make out another skier or rider maybe 10-15ms ahead - but just barely. Mormor came unstuck and inverted herself down the mountain - skis flay-ling and seemingly unable to stop. It was like a purple blur cascading into the abyss of white around us. I quickly put the trusty Fat Bob (my snowboard) in gear and trusted I was on a flat surface (more or less) and took a quick turn to intercept but fortunately she had already stopped - giggling I might say - without any injuries. We eventually made it down and decided to explore the lower reaches of the mountain  where visibility actually existed. We called it quits around noon and joined Morfar and the kids for some lunch. We planned to go up the cable car to Aguille du Midi and to the summit of Mt Blanc where the views of the valley and surrounding mountains are touted as 'incroyable' but were frankly informed by the ticket operator that it was a total white out and not worth it. Plan B went into action - we decided to head to the ice caves - otherwise known as the Mer de Glace. A train takes you up the mountain at a reasonable pitch and then you catch a cable car to go into the valley where the Mer de Glace - a glacier - has been tunneled into and caves created. They've also carved massive polar bears, bedroom settings and a fire place into the ice - no bar though - so we couldn't get a drink. It was quite amazing really - tres incroyable (French for  very incredible - but sounds better). We're hoping for some better visibility today as have booked in with some guides to take Jen, Cynthia and I off-piste - we were hoping to do the Valle Blanche - a 20km off-piste route from the top of Mt Blanc - but it looks like this may not happen as weather and visibility is going to get worse over the next 48 hrs. Hopefully it will hold together today and we'll get a good run in wherever we end up.