Better than the Last: A rollercoaster of a hangover and a moron of a Greek

Tues 11th: Hadn't skied for a while due to poor conditions so I was on it. Made a slightly foolish error the night before and a quiet drink turned into an awesome 5:30am night out. Oops. After a luxurious 2.5 hours sleep I beat Tom Tom, Andy and Joe to the Midi by 10:15. Needless to say I felt AWFUL.

The queue wasn't too bad so after some faffing we made it up to mid-station by 11. Decided that we should get a cheeky lap of skiers' right from the mid-station. After some traversing and a couple of rocks we managed to find our entry (only Tom Tom had skied this side). Snow was great although you could feel the windswept base underneath most of the time. Occasionally you found a perfect, deep pitch which was heavenly. Bottom half of the run was moguled but the snow was really soft. Only the last few 100m were rocky and slushy. On the track out we crossed the couloirs down from mid-station including the one we skied the other day. Every single one had huge slides down it. Sobering. At the bottom I was considering calling it as my hangover was pretty bad, but we got down and walked straight onto the lift. Perfect.

Tom Tom route finding off the mid-station

We skied down that the other day...

At the top we bumped into Steve and Sparky. Our plan was to do Petits Envers but the guided parties had tracked it out. Instead we chose Rognon AGAIN, but it was the best decision ever. I dropped high off the arête. Amazing. Stopped half way down the glacier. Waited for about 20 minutes. Wasn't initially worried as Tom Tom was getting some great footage of us all, but eventually gave the others a call.

Turns out they'd been called over by a guy wallowing in the powder below the arête. Andy quickly found out this guy had:

No skis, no snowboard, no crampons, no rope and no safety equipment at all. Oh but at least he had a walking pole... For anyone that doesn't know, this is a disgustingly dangerous and stupid thing to do on a glacier. It can quite easily result in death by falling down any of the 100+m snow-bridged crevasses you're walking across.

Tom Tom quite rightly gave him a piece of his mind and squashed his idiotic plan of walking down. The PGHM helicopter was called and he had no insurance so I expect he got a huge bill. Unlucky mate.

Eventually got to Rognon to find hardly any tracks. There we found was some of the softest, deepest powder of the season. Absolutely stunning. Everyone had massive smiles on their faces. My hangover had completely disappeared through pure joy. Tom Tom got some great footage of us all. Decided to walk up to the Requiem hut for a spot of lunch and for the exit couloirs. Getting to the couloirs was rocky. Everyone got at least a few scrapes. The couloir itself was great though, especially at the edges. Rest of the run was pretty uneventful apart from Glen Plake and co. flying past us on the James Bond track.

BEST? hangover day of my life!