Met my adventure buddy from last year, Ryan, at Flegere for first lifts. We called off our planned tour as the cloud had descended and it was snowing lightly. Annoyingly it cleared up and the cloud raised, but by then it was too late. Instead we went to our backup plan to ski ENSA couloir off Brevent top lift. I'd chatted to people who'd done it yesterday and they said it was in really good nick, perfect for a bad weather day. After messing around with buses we quickly grabbed rope and harnesses and headed up.
The ski to the entrance still had powder but a lot of rocks. After a short bootpack we skied in, looking for the abseil anchor someone had kindly set up. Eventually we spotted it, set up the twin 30s and rappelled in. 2x30s left us at a very steep section, fine to sidestep down but a little annoying to faff with ropes on.
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| ENSA is the blue line, shamelessly stolen off Lorne's Blog |
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| Getting ready to rappel in |
There had already been a lot of traffic in the couloir but the snow was still good and there was no hardpack / ice until far below the exit. Carefully dodging the rocky sections we carried on down to the main face. Patches of ice and rock greeted us but it wasn't in bad nick at all until much further down. There were a few long sections of sideslipping/sidestepping but not too bad.
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| Ryans first turns of the season |
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| Looking back up to the exit |
We skied all the way down to the lift station taking our skis off only once (probably should've done it another 1-2 times). Good to have finally done it, having been talking about it for ages. Need to go up again though and get it on a powder day. Also respect to Ryan as this was his first run on skis in 7 months, not the easiest.
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