Col du Passon TR 24-04-06

[Idris]

Got going slowly, so hit the tram sometime after 10. While skiing down the Rognon glacier towards the Argentiere the snow was already corn. Worryingly there was a rescue chopper around. This transpired to be a Serac fall incident with 3 serious injuries/ fatalities (haven’t heard yet). Down across the glacier. The skintrack started as far up the Argentiere as I’ve ever seen it. Actually below the col du Chardonet.

The traverse across was a bit tenuous, but not strenuous. The slog up to the base of the couloir was only hard work due to the height of the midday sun. The Couloir itself hasn’t been this nice in ages.

Karl looking at the view over the Argentiere glacier.



We’ve climbed a fair way for this



Just as we were about to put our skis on a couple arrived in Licra, and lightweight skis/boots. They asked if this was the col du Chardonet. At first we thought they were joking - the Chardonet is the next and far more obvious col up the Argentiere glacier. Once we discovered they were from the Pyrenees and weren’t joking it turned out to be fine. They just wanted to make sure their altimeter wasn’t lying.

Blatant product shot



Most of the tracks don’t go the was were heading…it’s guarded by a tricky bit… I found this a bit of a pain in nice comfy boots (Lowa Struka) trying to push around big skis.



The tricky bit and the following traverse across some dubious slopes rewarded us with an unskied bowl. The avie debris was days old.



Karl enjoying the corn between the debris.



Big smiles. About here we started to be very glad of large Freeride skis (Karl skis older B3’s)



From here down the corn became really creamy and then kind of soupy towards the trees.



As soon as we hit the trees thing got a bit intimidating. Every traverse from safeish zone to safeish zone was greeted with the snow sloughing away beneath our tracks. The first was the scariest. Over a hundred tons of wet stuff just up and trundled all the way to the valley floor. The lower we got the more we criss crossed the slide paths and the less snow fell away. About 100m to go we were joined by the couple on lightweight gear and were very surprised to see them ski this awful snow very well on not much more than toothpicks!

[skier666]

[Yeti]

Karl has a very euro headband. Nice TR; great pics.

[bbirtle]

Hey somehow missed this one. Nice pics, Idris. How was today's Midi mission? TR coming for that one?

[Idris]

Idris. How was today's Midi mission? TR coming for that one?

No mission. Just a mellow Grand Envers (Col du Plan). 6 tracks in front. Snow up top nice. Creamy in the middle, soggy and a little scary down low

[bbirtle]

Just a mellow Grand Envers (Col du Plan). ...

Col du Plan: Just a mellow 40-45 degree 250m slope followed by another mellow 35-40 degree 200m slope weaving in through some of the biggest crevasses you'll ever see, followed by another steep 300m transition from glaciar to moraine. And ohh did I mention the walk down the exposed ridgeline with the 2000m vertical drop on one side to start it all off?

Gotta love those mellow days in Chamonix.

Sorry I'm too swamped to join you these last few...

[verbier61]

soooooo nice!

[Hicks]

Tom, when looking at all that gorgeous terrain shots I definitely need to come and see you more often there. Jealousy is eating on me.