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... |
No comments:
Post a Comment