TR: Chamonix - 2013 Edition

For the 4th year in a row I'm fortunate enough to find myself in Chamonix - the birthplace of mountaineering and the cradle of steep skiing.

My first few days in Chamonix have been somewhat monochromatic. The first two days were basic piste skiing which isn’t worth writing about but it served the purpose of getting the legs moving, having not skied since October. Clouds and flat light had dominated these days – and Chamonix with its dramatic peaks overhead is quite the melancholy place in poor visibility. It makes you feel like the mountains towering over you go forever & you can’t quite imagine the delights they permit in better weather.

Day 3 – Glacier de Toule & Combe de la Vierge

But on Saturday it was go time. Through most of Friday there had been rain in the village and snow above about 1500m so we decided to go high and check it out. Our initial plan was to ride the Aiguille du Midi, skin across the Vallee Blanche to the Helbronner and assess whether we would drop into Italy or if the weather was deteriorating just ski the Vallee Noire back to Chamonix. I had never done the Vallee Noire, which is the Italian side of the Vallee Blanche, and skiing the Glacier de Toule is always a great option

Mont Blanc in the background, previous steep skiing descents in the foreground:

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Looking across to the Aiguille du Midi

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Skinning across to Combe de la Vierge, 'Les Trois Monts' in the background

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Looking down at the goods:

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Shredding:

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More pics and words at: http://aussieskier.com/trip-reports/...-de-la-vierge/

More to come.

Day 4 – Vallée Blanche Gros Rognon

Yesterday’s grey skies yielded some lovely powder but there’s something about sunshine that adds to the overall quality of the day, even though it does nothing to enhance the powder and in fact damages it at the right elevations and aspects.

So with this in mind there was not much decision making to be done when we saw the forecast for sunny skies, and we reserved our place in the first cable car up the Aiguille du Midi at 8:10am with our friends from Australia, father and son team Phil and Jack. Phil is another former instructor, and Jack is 19 and coming to the end of his first season instructing in Austria, and his youth combined with 3 months on snow already meant his skiing was strong. They had visited Chamonix before but it was their first time up the Aiguille which is always an occasion.

Yesterday while skiing the Combe de la Vierge we spotted some nice untracked powder in the Gros Rognon area, which is generally regarded as a place where the deeper snow settles in the Vallee Blanche, so we rode the cable car, roped up for the Arete and then made a beeline for the pow:

CG on the rope conga line in the ice tunnel:

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Looking back up at the Arete

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My line from yesterday hugging the cliffs:

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Phil:

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Jack.

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Nicole and Jerome:

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Ducks & Jerome:

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Screwing around on the Glacier:

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More pics & words at: http://aussieskier.com/trip-reports/...e-gros-rognon/

Day 5 - Courmayeur

After yesterday’s epic on the Vallee Blanche and Grands Montets, the forecast was ordinary and we had low expectations. Because Phil and Jack don’t have touring gear our options were limited and Jerome and I were at a loss at what to do. The snow down low in the Chamonix valley is dust on crust and up high is all tracked.

So we decided to go to Courmayeur, mainly because it was a change of scenery and skiing in Italy was always fun. So we headed through the tunnel and rode the mismatch of lifts and finally found ourselves at the top. And with a surprise. There was a foot of fresh snow.

From the top of Courmayeur there are two main off-piste areas that extend to each side of the resort. There was some cloud about so we simply decided to go to the one that looked more clear, which turned out to be the Arp Vielle area which drops down into Val Veny with the wild landscape of the South face of Mont Blanc looming overhead.

Scoping the line:

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Couloir below with some distracting background:

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Kinda steep.

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Nicole testing her new skis:

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Now over to the other side:

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Nice pow:

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Jack likes the snow:

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Myself and Phil:

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More pics & words at: http://aussieskier.com/trip-reports/...-5-courmayeur/

sweet. love this one
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarveMan

Nice pow:

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love this one :)

Beautiful pic's and stoke. say hello to Jerome for me and enjoy one of the most special place's on earth.

Will do.

La Grave kicked our asses today. TR to come.

Great stuff. Nice man-purse on Phil, BTW.

Day 8: La Grave

After a flurry of initial activity that yielded some great skiing our legs began to tire and the weather turned again, so on Tuesday morning we slept in but felt a little guilty and wanting to improve our climbing fitness so we skinned 840m vert up to the mid station of Flegere. It was quite a mundane effort and didn't warrant any pics but I wore my Suunto Ambit so you can see what we got up to by clicking here. Wednesday was a clear day off as we wanted to get our legs ready for a three day trip to La Grave.

We had stayed at La Grave two years earlier but not technically skied there. We skied a long couloir over the back called La Rama but due to logistics it made more sense to have our car at Les Deux Alpes and ride the lifts there even though it could be accessed from La Grave.

We left Chamonix at 6am this morning and rolled into the carpark just before 10 - we were concerned with high winds we could see blowing snow on the ridgelines during the drive but all was calm at La Grave so we got our tickets and headed up the wonderful, ubiquitously French cable car system. Not before spying the local market and taking a picture of the cheese truck with La Meije towering overhead. We eat a lot of cheese in France and it is very important.

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Too cold up top to take pics. Shame as the top poma is a scream.

Skied on the Chancel side to Couloir Banane:

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Went back to the top, skinned up the glacier to the top of a scary line.

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At the top of this face I uttered the infamous words "Too Steep". If you look closely you can see the brown stains. It angers me greatly that this pic makes it look like a pretty pedestrian effort.

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Then it got good:

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More pics and words at: http://aussieskier.com/trip-reports/...ay-8-la-grave/

Nice euro stoke, carveman!

Looks like you doing well during a "dry" period....

:D

Another day, another retreat in La Grave. Not as dramatic as yesterday's. TR maybe tomorrow.

TR: Chamonix 2013 - Day 8 - La Grave - Bonus Pics

As mentioned in my previous report, as we were dropping in to the Pan de Rideau a couple of French walkers were up there with a nice camera. I exchanged details with them and they have kindly sent through a folder of photos, of which I am extremely appreciative. Merci Claodio F!

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Looking up at the line and the traverse:

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TR: Chamonix 2013 - Day 9 - La Grave

Our road trip to La Grave was becoming a success defined by its failures.

In this most wild of locations it's a fantastic place for skiers with ambition to test their abilities, yet commands they remain circumspect and humble, and much like Chamonix time and time again the mountain shows who's boss.

For second day in La Grave we had an ambitious objective, with a perfectly acceptable bailout Plan B. Our wish was to ski over the back of La Grave, skin about 900m vert around the backside, do a short rappel back onto the La Grave side and then ski a large glaciated line called Les Enfetchores. It was set to be a long climb at high altitude with some technical aspects, and if at any time we felt like it was time to bail out we could simply take off our skins and ski down to St Christophe & take a taxi back to La Grave. We had previously skied a couloir into this immense valley in 2011 & enjoyed it thoroughly so it was not a bad backup plan.

So we made our way up the byzantine lifts and poma system punctuated by a tow with a snowcat, and found our way to the top of La Grave where we inched over the Col into the Vallon de la Selle. This south facing bowl is exposed to the sun, but we had hit La Grave during an unseasonably cold period and the temps were approx -15C. This meant that the previously sun affected snow had frozen solid, and the north winds that were driving this cold snap had blown some snow over into this bowl, which had also made a thin crust. So we slid into the bowl with quite a bit of trepidation, and as we traversed from one side to the other to see if there was an aspect that was even remotely skiable, with dinner-tray sized slabs of crust breaking off under our skis it looked pretty grim. It wasn't overly steep, about what you would expect from a decent black run in a ski resort, but the snow conditions made it damn near unskiable. After a couple of shaky stem christie turns we realised that a) it was quite unsafe getting to the point where we would start skinning b) our skin track would be in this impossible kind of snow, and c) our bailout ski to St Christophe would be on that same aspect & therefore snow conditions. So there was only one thing to do - put our skis on our back and head back to the frontside of La Grave. At this point we were feeling pretty defeated by La Grave, which actually felt pretty good.

Naturally we didn't take any photos during the shit-show that was our shaky descent nor during the hike up. By the time we got to the top we were a bit buggered and also didn't have enough time to begin another itinerary so we decided just to cruise around the 'easier' classic runs of Vallons and Chancel, have a nice lunch at Refuge Chancel, take some photos and just soak in the ambience of this majestic location.

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More pics & words at: http://aussieskier.com/trip-reports/...-9-la-grave-2/

For our last day in La Grave we wanted to descend one of the big 'frontside' runs that make their way down to the valley floor - from top to bottom that's 2300m vertical. For reference most major North American resorts have a vertical drop of around 1000m. Jerome wanted us to check out 'La Vaute' - a classic couloir with a 30m rappel in the middle. Due to the previous warm temps the lower faces had thawed and iced up, but as today was warmer than the last few days there was a chance it would be soft in the afternoon so we decided to do a few runs and have lunch first before heading down.

So we did a warm up in Vallons and went back up to check out the Trifides couloir, which is another of La Grave's more famous lines. It was around 40-45deg in steepness and the snow was firm but grippy. After a bit of rockhopping in the entrance we were in the couloir and had a great time. Good challenging steepness without being too steep or scary.

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After Trifides we headed up to the 3200m station for lunch as we wanted to give the lower face of La Vaute time to thaw. After lunch we headed up to the top of the poma at 3500m and skied some mellow glacier pow while looking for the entrance

As it rolled over and got steeper the snow became wind-affected and quite tricky to ski. Similar to the snow in Pan de Rideau but without the 50deg steepness attached, it definitely required some new techniques, some of which were more effective than aesthetic. The crust was definitely breakable and a jump turn would have had your skis buried and your body going over the high-side like an out of control motorcycle racer.

I'm fond of the saying 'It's not that you can't ski bumps, it's that you can't ski, and the bumps just prove it' - and the wind affected snow we were finding in La Grave was definitely proof that if you subsituted 'windslab' for 'bumps' in that sentence it would hold just as true. The legendary Doug Coombs who passed away in La Grave in 2006 also had a saying 'There's no such thing as shitty snow, just shitty skiers'. La Grave was proving this to us in spades. I can't remember a time when I learned so much about my skiing in just 3 short days as I did in La Grave.

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The couloir gradually narrowed and steepened until we found the rappel zone, Jerome dug out the anchor and started preparing his rope. I had done quite a bit more rope work than Nicole in previous years including a couple in Chamonix in 2012 so I was quite comfortable with the setup but this was Nicole's first effort and she performed admirably.

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The snow remained windpacked and shitty, right up until the point where we transitioned into the zone where it had thawed in the previous weeks and refrozen, where we found wafer-thin drifts of fresh windblown snow resting as a thin veneer on top of the brown refrozen slush & frozen avalanche debris.

The warming that was forecast for the afternoon never eventuated due to grey skies forming in advance of an approaching storm.

I've often mentioned that in France you have to pay for an epic descent with a horrible runout, but this was taking it to the next level. Absolutely rock hard, sheet ice slick faces with the occasional mogul to get in the way. It was combat skiing at it's absolute finest, and we skied very gingerly as a fall would have resulted in a large slide.

It was actually so bad that it was good, the kind of skiing where you just grit your teeth and get stuck into it - again La Grave proving that the mountain is boss.

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And so ended our trip to La Grave - Jerome hitchhiked back up to the car and came back down the road to pick us up and we began the 4 hour journey back to Cham with the excitement of a storm brewing and more powder.

I couldn't be happier with our three days in La Grave. I have wanted to ski there for a very long time, and it possesses that rare and exceptional honour of living up to it's reputation, and exceeding it by a great deal.

It is a true challenge of the all facets that make up an expert skier, technically, physically & psychologically. It exposes any weakness more brutally than any other ski area I've seen. Even Chamonix for all it's hardcore elements also has the more benign resorts in the valley allowing you to take a softer option.

I can't wait to go back.

More pics and words at: http://aussieskier.com/trip-reports/...y-10-la-grave/

fkn cool TR!!!!
great shots throughout...

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Awesome read and great pics, thanks for all the detail you put into it (interesting for someone who has never skied in Europe to read).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarveMan

I've often mentioned that in France you have to pay for an epic descent with a horrible runout, but this was taking it to the next level. Absolutely rock hard, sheet ice slick faces with the occasional mogul to get in the way. It was combat skiing at it's absolute finest, and we skied very gingerly as a fall would have resulted in a large slide.

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This is oh so true in my very limited experience. Just got back from Chamonix--skiing out the Mer de Glace we had a good look at the exit from the Pas de Chevre which was pure water ice, littered with rocks. The guide we were with had done Couloir Poubelle (GM version) to Pas de Chevre the day before and said the exit couloir was 100 meters of sidestepping. 2 years ago we did the descents to Val Veny and Dolonne from Courmayeur resort and the runouts along stream banks were more rock than snow and more ice than either.

Nice, keep it rollin'!

Awesomeness!

Yesterday was bottomless Aiguille filth but pretty intense up there so no action shots, guides were very strict about skiing one at a time and going to islands of safety without stopping etc.

Today is Braille pow on tired legs at GM. Will see if I can update the TR tonight.

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Originally Posted by old goat

This is oh so true in my very limited experience. Just got back from Chamonix--skiing out the Mer de Glace we had a good look at the exit from the Pas de Chevre which was pure water ice, littered with rocks. The guide we were with had done Couloir Poubelle (GM version) to Pas de Chevre the day before and said the exit couloir was 100 meters of sidestepping. 2 years ago we did the descents to Val Veny and Dolonne from Courmayeur resort and the runouts along stream banks were more rock than snow and more ice than either.

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I did a ski tour in Les Contamines a couple of years ago and the cat track out was pure water ice. We kept our skis on but a lot of the rando skiers on their noodles put crampons on to walk down.

More than anything, skiing in Europe makes you tough.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CarveMan

I did a ski tour in Les Contamines a couple of years ago and the cat track out was pure water ice. We kept our skis on but a lot of the rando skiers on their noodles put crampons on to walk down.

More than anything, skiing in Europe makes you tough.

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I feel like I drop a couple of levels of ability when I go over there--snow's different, but mainly the setting and seriousness intimidates me. Beautiful pics. Looking forward to the rest of this years, and next year's.

I feel like a freaking gaper most of the time here.

Plus this year with my knee going south I'm skiing like a gaper on even the easier stuff :(

FKNA! Good stuff. How long are you there for? I was out there for 10 days in Feb for the first time and it's pretty unreal. Felt like I was just barely starting to get my bearings by day 10. I'm trying to make "moving" out there for a few months next winter happen.

Here for another week.

Today was all time. TR in a few hours.