Little bit of Me 'Stoke'

[edg]

Here's a movie of myself (So vain, aren't I) this Easter in Les Arcs, France. In the second clip (The powder one) the powder was just over knee deep in the compression of the turn. There was a little couloir (Only about 50 or so meters long) just behind where I am skiing that was a lot of fun - it was quite steep, very deep and I was the only person to put tracks on it.

It had a steeper and slightly longer sibling next to it and the whole shebang slid on a ski cut, but the base was just a few days old powder, so I still had fun.

Returning there this christmas and have some more couloirs I want to try (Pic below). The red one (which is my main aim) has an average angle of 34 degrees and goes up to ~38 degrees, but has sections of 21 degrees. The rest I haven't looked into yet. The picture was taken at Easter, and as you can see there is an exposed rock (which I don't believe is a boulder) just after the couloir expands out and then contracts. This could be a problem, but I'll be taking crampons, harness and ice axe just incase. The Yellow lines appear to be a nice bowl, but I'm going to check it on the map, and the blue and green lines are more just possibilities and require more research.

I've skied the large notch in the trees just left of the Les Arcs and it was pretty good. The only problem I had was that it was quite low, and so the fresh snow got very heavy towards the bottom and it was tough to turn in. The were some snowboarders I met half way up who were descending about 50 meters then sitting down and having fag. You gotta love that pace of life

http://hosting.the-edg.net/edg/mountains.jpg
http://hosting.the-edg.net/edg/lines.jpg

Anywho, enjoy the video (6.6mb). Unfortunately the Mpeg-4 codec isn't too kind on snow.

edg

[CaddyDaddy77]

Nice turns in the vid, edg.

The red line looks to be a nice route, keep us posted.

[subtle plague]

The quality is better than mine...
btw. How is the terrain in les arcs ? it didnt look very interesting seen from la plagne ....(la plagne itself is pretty boring too except for some runs which make up abut 10% of the area)

[edg]

Originally posted by subtle plague
The quality is better than mine...
btw. How is the terrain in les arcs ? it didnt look very interesting seen from la plagne ....(la plagne itself is pretty boring too except for some runs which make up abut 10% of the area)

La Plagne has hidden(ish) super terrain - if you got to the top left (The side nearest Les Arcs, but as far up on the lift system as you can go) there is easy traversing to some MASSIVE, preety hardcore lines. I didn't get to try them myself (spent 1 day in La Plagne) but definitely intend to make the trip over there.

You might want to open the Les Arcs piste map for the next section... (And sorry for the rather extensive use of the paragraphing, but I hate seeing big blocks of text, they're intimidating).

In Les Arcs, on the other hand, has more of its good skiing closer to hand (as you can see from the image above - where you can traverse to that big bowl in the middle/left can be traversed to from the l'Ours black and then there is a short(ish) hike to those chutes.

On the Aiguille Rouge side, it couldn't be easier. I found the best skiing from the Mid-Station, but mainly because the visibility was pretty poor on the few trips I took to the top, and so didn't feel too adventurous. Massive powder fields, easy traverse to one massive colouir about 100 or so m past the Ski de Vitesse piste, and a slightly longer traverse to basically unlimited lines on the other side of this colouir (including a damn fine looking colouir that would be a bit of a hike, but looks steep and powder trapping).

On the left as you progress down the Lanches black there is some preety excellent powder, which gets tracked out and wind scoured v. quickly, whereas slightly to the right there is this sneaky little couloir (with a hairy->unbelievably scary entrance options) that catches all of the windblown, and so - despite its relatively thin profile - you can get up to about 5 deep runs (I had a lot of fun there ;-)). If you take the Dou de l'Homme black there are a nice set of steep assed couloirs (seriously sloughing, but no avalanching on a 3, progressing to 2, graded day). If you're more of the freeride/hucking persuasion, then the cornice that builds due to the wind scouring detailed earlier gives from a 3 to about 6 meter drop into powder which I didn't see touched all week. It seems pretty stable too, as I saw some patrollers dynamite the space it after the biggest dump of the week and there was no movement.

The Plagnettes/Transarc 2 lifts give access to the Col del Chal - from which a well trodden boot pack leads in the direction of the summit of the Aiguille Grive. I wished I had done it, but unfortunately I never seemed to find time for it - something for Christmas too.

The stuff from the ridge between L'Arpette and Les Dents du Peigne had some sick looking lines, but it seems to be plagued by poor visibility. The whole week I didn't take a lift up on the Arpette without spotting a new line, just to have it disappear into the cloud. On a good day I'm sure you could find some seriously fun lines there.

The Comborcière gives access to some decent looking terrain for the more intrepid (in energy expenditure stakes) rider, as there are some pretty sweet looking slopes on the face to your left as you go up the lift, but they would require quite a bit of walking, and in spring the snow towards that end of the valley turned to concrete very quickly. I was skiing along down the Cascade to the Pre St-Espirit (to avoid the queues at the Marmottes and Bois de l'Ours) and took a little detour across a bridged stream. As soon as my skis hit the 'softer' stuff on the other side I was thrown head first into a 'snow drift' which felt awful concrete like to me. Stars-before-eyes ensued :-\

Another run which is good for powder when the Aiguille Rogue gondolas (both top and mid) are closed is the Lanchettes. This appears to be the 'forgotten lift' with people only seeing it as access to Villaroger. Infact it's an easy - if windblown icy - traverse to the wind shadow of the slopes the far side of the Varet black. Compared to the vert you get from the Aiguille Rogue middle station, it's kinda pathetic, but I found plenty of powder at the times the Gondy was closed, and the just-right slope angle (not so steep as to slough/avalanche, not so shallow as to be slow) means it's actually a nice little run. All of this stuff leads into the run out from the Aiguille Rogue mid-station, so be prepared to break trail if you're up there early ;-) (some has to do it...)

Hope this helps, I'll add more when I remember.

edg