Better than the Last: Mixed snow and technique up Brevent

Mon 27th: Hadn't skied for 3 days and properly for 4 or tried out my new boots (I know... first world problems) so was desperate to get up the mountain.

Woke up early for the powder day to find Charlie and Liam were both indisposed... pathetic. Managed to ski with Luke, Sleigh, Josh and LOCAL Graham. We decided on Brevent. Had a great day with mostly fantastic snow, with a little bit of shit and some comparable skiing by me. My new boots are pretty nice but are much less forgiving in balance so it took a while - and some poor skiing - to get used to them.

We started on the magic carpet chair as nothing else was open and iked up a hill far skier's left. This was my first deep / steepish pitch in my boots and my balance was hilariously bad. Snow was amazing but a little slidy. This was hardly surprising as there was debris everywhere from the morning's avalanche control (although not deep). Did another lap of the big open face hard skier's left, then down through the trees. Snow everywhere was amazing.

Got down and the Que for the magic carpet was 'big' so decided on a lap of the home run - first of the season. The long steep pitch off the side was great, as was the snow on the run. Managed to dodge all the rocks (who knows how) although Josh managed a coreshot on his new Black Crows, ouch. Fun but not again for a while for my skis' safety.

Got up Brevent again to find out that the other side was open. The snow was ridiculously deep in places. Definitely the side to be on so when Cornu opened we headed straight off the back. Had two great laps of awesome snow, first down skier's left of the run and second off the ridge couloirs off the main face. There were lots of nice big rocks to jump off and the landings were perfectly smooth. Finished up with hard skier's right traverse of the main face. Everyone ripped it down.

The others were desperate to ski Hotel face off the top bin so we headed up despite reports it was closed to skiers. It was... so Sleigh, Luke and I decided to ski down the main face skier's right of the Praz bubble. The top was OK the the snow quickly got pretty poor and it was more a case of picking your way down rather than enjoying it. Snow got really heavy and my calfs took a pounding due to my poor balance in the boots, think I strained one.

Got down and called it a day, the others were planning on the mid station but I wanted to call it before I was in too much pain to ski tomorrow and before I took a big chunk out of my skis.