Back to powder ways

Thurs 27th: Second day of Euan's visit. Hoping to show him better than yesterday's s**t show. Up early to reserve Midi tickets just in case. Got first bin... but couldn't find a third person and didn't feel comfortable doing it just the two of us. Such a shame. He was up for a fun cruisey day anyway so instead we headed off to Le Tour. We were up in Vallorcine by 9:45 and after no queues up at Tête de Balme. A lap under the chair had pockets of great snow, lots of wind lips, but also lots of crust beneath. Still fun bouncing down although the snow wasn't decent enough to just do it without regard.

Le Tour beautiful as ever with features everywhere

We bumped into Liam and Sonny and decided to hit the bowls skiers' left of the chair past the cornices. Snow was awesome. Lots of playful turns, rollers and general enjoyment. After another lap of the same we dropped even further left. Some deep and some crusty snow and some big tree deposits. Snow between the trees still had an icy crust below though so we skipped the majority of it, just choosing the good stuff. We shot off for another of the same whilst Liam and Sonny waited for more people. Moved off into the main face to see what it was like. Hardly any tracks down the bowls to mid-station although the snow wasn't nearly as good. Dropped in for a quite bite to eat and a coke then decided to find what was left on the main bowl.

Messing around

The main bowl is a bit mellow but surprisingly, at 2pm, the snow was still soft and untracked if you knew where to look. After a few more mellow runs the clouds rolled in so we headed back to Vallorcine. One final run down Tête de Balme with some decent fresh pitches and we were down.

Still loads of untracked by 2pm... what...?

Rollers everywhere

A really nice chilled out day. I really enjoyed it as it was the first in ages I wasn't carrying a rope / harness and could just relax. Amazing how the snow didn't deteriorate like usual, even on the South facing aspects. Also really glad to finally show Euan a good time after having talked up Chamonix so much.