Work hangover in Courmayeur

29th Dec: Woke up after a depressingly short sleep to go and try and make the most of the weather that had ruined the last two days. Grabbed a lift with Rasmus, Oscar and Erik to Courmayeur.

The first run was.... abysmal. Took a big core shot straight away skiing the tracked out trees that had been 'excellent' for the last two days. It was also bitterly cold. I was thoroughly pissed off and wished I'd stayed in bed. It looked like a crap day until I spotted they'd opened Youla for the first day since the snow (it said it was closed for the day when we arrived). Oscar wisely skipped the first run as his transceiver had run out of battery so sped down to buy some more.

So very cold...

The snow was fantastic. Soft and deep. We chose aspects carefully as some slopes were heavily wind loaded. We did three laps of the couloir with fresh tracks all the way down. Couple of drops off features here and there then into the already tracked trees below. I also took an embarrassing amount of falls as I hadn't turned my DINs up since the start of the season and was pre-releasing constantly. Cranking my DINs up heavily at lunch solved that problem. On our third run one of the guys led us into a couloir further West. I was hesitant due to wind loading and was proved correct as I set off a very small slab. We got out sharpish. 

Wouldn't have wanted to be first anyway

Freshies all the way skier's left

Taken by Eric

Great views

Slashing the pow

After a feast (some peanuts) we headed back up for another three laps and took the high traverse as it was relatively untracked. The snow was even better. Big arcing turns accompanied by whoops of joy. Work hangover well and truly forgotten... The day ended as it started, with a dire ski back down. The middle however had been excellent.

Waiting for Rasmus at the top of Youla

Traverse in the late afternoon... fresh to be had everywhere

On the way back through the tunnel we got had to wait in the tunnel for an hour for an emergency. Was somewhat worrying when the barriers came down and the fire engines blasted past. Luckily all that happened was a coach had broken down / was leaking oil.

Xmas / NY Changeover...

27+28th Dec: So this year I've decided to keep the non active stuff on the blog to a minimum, but this weekend definitely deserves a mention. Everyone in the alps to do with transport/logistics got royally %**&*ed this weekend. It's been all over the news in both France and the UK.

A monster storm hit the alps in the wee hours of Saturday morning. Great! We desperately needed snow. However the road conditions were less fun, or to be more precise, the awful drivers were.

I left at 4:45am. The first journey was fine, snow on the roads but no traffic. By the return leg everywhere was chaos. People were by the side / in the middle / in the ditch of the road completely stuck. Most of them without chains. People were overtaking stopped people and getting stuck on the other side of the road into oncoming traffic. Chaos everywhere. In addition virtually every departure / arrival at GVA was delayed / cancelled.

Gridlock as far as you can see

My lunch

By the time I got home 21 hours later at 1:45am I'd seen countless crashed cars, shouted at numerous people doing some of the most spectacularly awful driving I've ever seen and overtaken more people than ever in a day.  The 2 hours I wasn't physically driving were spent juggling fuming clients in the airport and drivers stuck around the region. Fun times. I was physically and mentally exhausted. Luckily I had a pleasant 3 hours of fitful sleep before another 12 hour shift. When I walked into the airport on Sunday morning I had countless people begging me for lifts to every resort you could name.

Stuck people sleeping all over the airport

The tour operators potentially had the worst of it. Friends of mine were stuck in Chambery getting shouted at for 48 hours with no sleep. Those at GVA were hardly better off. It took three days to clear the backlog of clients who had missed flights / transfers.

Quick Xmas ski up GM

Christmas: Had a great Xmas eve of heavy drinking in Chambre 9, Munster and Bar d'Up. After a quick and tasty brunch with Holly, May and James I popped up GM for a quick ski dressed as Santa. Bumped into quite a few people and we headed up Top Bin. The conditions weren't that bad, although the bergschrund was getting seriously visible on the main face. Did a quick Bochard lap after where I managed take a nice chunk out of my finger on a mandatory 2m air through a rock gully off the high traverse. It's not in yet... Nice to get up though and good fun.

Myself and Bob Santad up

Happy Santas

James with our casual Xmas brekkie

Santa Selfie

Bob silhouetted

Lukas cruising

Decided that 2 laps were enough in my hung over state so headed off to La Clusaz to visit my family + family friends. An excellent Xmas and my first turkey dinner in 3 years. Stayed the night and had a brilliant cheese fondue and tartiflette for lunch. Its a hard life...

NB. Cheers to Lukas for the great photo of Bob and I.

Casual morning laps

Mon 22nd: Yet another day off... getting slightly worried by the lack of hours but oh well. SKIING. Headed up to GM with Bob and Nick for a few quick laps of top bin. We were up pretty early and again there was no one in the queue... crazy.

I will never get tired of seeing these mountains

First lap Bob and I dropped off the main face into lovely chalky snow. The conditions so much better than I expected as the wind had filled in tracks. The snow got more chopped up as we got lower, but there were still pockets of untouched powder here and there. Exited via the Canadian bowl. Nick joined us for the second lap of a similar route and conditions. The only difference was the queue.

What the devil?

Bob and Nick on the front face

Bumped into Oscar at the station and we had a long queue for the third lap. Oscar wanted to ski from the viewing platform and I was happy to join as I haven't before. The arete was definitely more lethal than the midi arete. The skiing was nothing special but good to know another route for the future. We traversed back over to the main face and took a similar route down.

Oscar looking badass ignoring the sign

Actually pretty exposed

A nice easy morning ski. The conditions up top are still good and I reckon they'll be OK for at least a few days. Seven laps of top bin in the first two days of skiing this year... probably more than I've done in the last two seasons as I usually favour le Tour / the Midi. Definitely a GM convert though.

Chamonix finally opens... and it was well worth the wait

So Compagnie du Mont Blanc have been as lazy with the lifts as I have been with my blog this season. I figured I should start things up again. At some point I'll clear the backlog of preseason fun (Verbier / climbing / ice-climbing etc.)

Sat 20th: Up at 7 after less than 4 hours sleep. Desperately wanted to go back to bed but forced myself up in the vain hope of good, untouched snow. Made it to GM by 8:20 picking up Flynn who was hitchhiking en route (lucky boy).

To our amazement we found virtually no queue. Bumped into Colin, Steve and Mark in the queue. Made the second bin of the day, resigned to the fact that there would already be a monster queue for the top bin with the additional capacity from the new lift. Got up to... no queue. Everyone was lapping Bochard. We made the very first top bin of the season and there was room to swing a cat. SCORE.

Spirits high for the first top bin of the season

Views were breathtaking with the clouds shifting showing select peaks. The big surprise was the monstrous crevasse above the front face, where everyone had happily skied last year. It says a lot that no one in the first lift dropped off the front face in the slight cloud.

The Verte, Dru and Mont Blanc poking through

Stunning views of the Aiguille d'Argentiere + A Neuve

A picture cannot convey its size

First casualty of the season

Everyone was amazed by how good and deep the snow was given the conditions yesterday were poor. It was crusty in places but deep and uniform. Colin and I left the others as we only had limited time. In my over enthusiastic state I forgot I wasn't on my powder skis put in big arcing second turn, dug a tip, did a breathtaking pirouette and collapsed in the snow about 30 metres from where I started. Broke ANOTHER pole.

First lap we followed by the side of the Pylones piste and then hugged skier's right after the col, dodging the crevasses on the shoulder. Undoubtedly the best snow of the day and I was shouting with delight at being back in proper powder. We exited via the Herse piste and down to Marmottons, only clipping the occasional rock in the untracked powder.

We bumped into Tim in the lift queue (I say queue but there wasn't one) and joined up for a second lap. This time we moved further to skier's left after the col. The snow was slightly crusty, but completely untracked meaning fast arcing turns. There were large patches of raincrust but these were easy to spot and avoid. Exited via the Herse run. Great powder until the last 200m vert of crud.

By this point the cloud had lifted and there were tracks in the front face, so why not... We dropped in, giving a wide berth to the crevasses then continued on the shoulder to the Rognon and hugged its right hand side. The snow was fantastic, better than the backside. Exited to Marmottons via one of the many untouched gullies.

Skier's left might be out for a while...

The fourth lap was more of the same. Snow was even better (?how) at the top thanks to the wind obscuring previous tracks and we found some more unskied gullies out. Took the Plan Joran down to see what all the fuss was about. In fairness it is pretty plush, definitely better than Lognan. We were back in the car after 4 laps by 12:15. What a first day... I couldn't have hoped for better.

Tim getting fresh turns on our fourth run...

Preseason

Didn't fancy doing separate blogs until the season started. Despite there being no snow in Chamonix preseason was pretty damn fun. 

15th Nov: Met Arvid and Rasmus and went to Verbier for some wind crusted off piste fun. Awful vis though.

Best vis of the day

Nov-Dec: Multiple trips to Gaillands with Rasmus/Oscar/Arvid/Charlie. Smashed out all the routes I've either failed / struggled at... Summer should be good for progression. The rock was freezing cold at times.

Seriously cold and hard work

25th Nov: Climbed at Servoz for the first time with Charlie. Really nice crag. Stunning views.

Not a bad belay stance

Chilling at the top

10th Dec: Popped up to Mer de Glace with Jon and Lukas to have a mess around ice climbing. Managed to take a big fall into the stream (luckily frozen) when unroped. Oops.

14th Dec: Drove people to Verbier for work. Didn't bring the whole ticket booklet so they wouldn't give me a pass. Got caught using someone else's and had to walk / hitch back down.

Walking down the road

15/16/18th Dec: Verbier again again again. First with Charlie / Lotte. Snow was OK but nothing special. Views were great. Second for work. Last with Oscar / Rasmus / Arvid. Great snow up high turning into crap by 2800. Skis weren't running at all.

Good snow. Couldn't see it though

19th Dec: On call for work so skinned up le Tour. Got calls constantly on the way up. Irritating. Made it past mid station and was told the top was too rocky to bother with. Spring slush on the way back down.