Better than the Last: Variable conditions in 'Scottish Winter'

Mon 3rd: Up ridiculously early for a powder day up the Midi with Charlie, Liam, Jason and Dan. Made it there just after 8:30am and was about 15th in the queue. At 9:10 they announced that the booking system was in effect for the first time this season so our queuing had been pointless... F******g CDMB strikes again. After a desperate rush we managed to get tickets to the 5th bin of the day, watching all the guided groups who'd arrived late leapfrog us. Everyone was pretty pissed off.

Made it up by about 10:30 to the worst conditions any of us had seen on the arête. Visibility was bad and the wind was seriously strong whipping up lots of spindrift. It must have been 100km/h+. Later we found out they closed the lift for the day soon after. -15 degrees + windchill + 3 of the SLOWEST guided parties I've ever seen made the arête torturously cold and slow. Liam, an experienced winter climber, had no problem calling it 'Scottish winter conditions'.

I dropped in high, above the others, to see what the steep pitch was like. Boilerplate... Snow further down the basin was actually pretty nice and not too sticky.

Top pitch of Rognon was excellent as usual. Second pitch was hands down the most variable snow I have ever seen / heard of. We're talking knee deep powder to boilerplate repeated every few metres, all in one lovely flat surface. In the poor vis it looked identical. My ski ejected hitting a wave of windcrust that was so hard it rebounded and flew metres into the air. I've dug my tips plenty of times in heavy snow before but that was something else.

For the rest of the descent we pieced our way down through the heavy powder, some quite enjoyable, some not so much. Charlie missed the exit to Montenvers (not hard in fairness) so we took the James Bond track. The bootpack up was easy although the guided groups were moving slowly again. The track itself was covered with a few rocks poking through. We skied right down to the main road.

It was too late to get a lap of the GM Poubelle in and the mid station was closed, so that was us done for the day. Bit of a let down as we didn't manage either of our plans (Grand Envers and Poubelles) but we did have a pretty good time. Although I made a big deal about the crappy conditions, most of us quite enjoyed it, especially the arête. Felt more like an expedition than a ski.