Half term is 'awful'...

Mon 17th: After a broken 4 hour sleep I was up at 7am, completely knackered for fresh Midi laps. After shouting and bullying Charlie and Liam to get up I went and booked tickets - third bin of the day, the earliest possible as the first two were saved for guided parties. Unsurprisingly the CDMB were at it again. Sparky and Steve were in the queue 10 minutes before me got tickets for 2 bins later than us. Fairness is clearly not their aim. First bin was at 9:30 so in the end we were up the top by 10:15.

I'd been pushing to do Grand Envers for weeks and decided today was the day. Charlie and Liam were both nervous and pushed for the normal route but I was having none of it. I desperately wanted to ski something a bit steeper, felt confident with the route and knew this was the best we'd get the snow. That said I didn't want to lay first tracks on a route I'd never skied. Luckily some guys off our bin shot past. Cool.

We got to the second arte and Liam was quite literally bricking it. Bless him. Admittedly I was the good kind of nervous. After hyping him up I dropped in quickly to stop the two locals behind us snaking our line. There was a 20cm+ layer of perfect snow but it immediately became clear to everyone that below was ice. The top layer was good enough to make some nice deep turns and not to worry too much so I skied it quickly and retreated a safe distance. Charlie followed down the face with no worries, but not used to using his 'skinny' 112mm skis, managed to dig the tips on the runout and frontflip. Liam followed tentatively, carefully making his was down the 40-45 degree slope. He was fine on the steep but sat down just above the Bergschund. He got back up quickly though and skied down to meet us with the biggest smile on his face, proclaiming how awesome that was and how his 'butthole was still twitching'. He also told us the two locals had opted out after hearing my first turns so all the more respect to him for coming down anyway.

After a couple of nice pitches of untracked we came to the second steep section. This time the snow was perfect and there was no nasty base. Lots of face shots and smiles were had. Too much fun. More untracked and we made it down to the exit couloirs which although slightly more tracked were excellent. After a few snaps we were on the long exit down to the James bond track, which was in fantastic condition. Back home for lunch.

Perfect morning!

Nice vertical mile fall on the left down Plan d'Envers

Deep on top of ice

So much sluff

Charlie on the arete, me at the bottom

Liam killing it

Fresh smiles

Charlie and I were back at the Midi for 2pm to meet Jason, Andy, Greg and Ryan for another lap. Jason, Charlie and I waited at the bottom of the arete for the others who didn't make the same bin. The sun was going in and it was actually starting to get a little chilly. Eventually they made it down. Ryan put his skis on half way down, lost one first turn and had to clamber back up to it. 

We headed off to Petit Envers for another new route, choosing lines away from the main traffic. With some careful route selection there was still lots of fresh snow to be had. Where the route met Rognon we ran into a refrozen top layer, but only in certain places. It caught a few people out. The rest was pretty uneventful apart from the idiotic tracks you could see through the Seracs du Geant. People were cutting lips and landing just on the edges of holes. Others were cutting into the edges of crevasses to get fresh snow... One track highlighted what you ski on on the glacier. Someone had cut two metres to the right of the main path and broken through a snow-bridge leaving a gaping hole below. Luckily his tracks continued the other side... 

Great afternoon!

Deciding on a route

Routefinding

Cant complain with first tracks at 3pm

As soon as we got home we were showered and ready to go for half price chicken wings at MBC with Liam, Rachel, Roberta, Jenna and Tanya. It's official. I AM BORED OF MBC CHICKEN WINGS. I know, who'd have believed it. Think I'm done with them for the season.

After half an hour at home we walked over to Tom Tom / Andy / Robyn's place for a little get together. A night of great company with their English and French friends, along with plenty of alcohol and some pretty competitive beer pong. Even better, and if you know me you'll understand why, was the incredible food. Thanks Robyn for the 6+ delicious chicken parmijianas and other nibbles I ate. I left stuffed.

Brilliant night!

MBC again

Zak's got a big ego