Woke up deciding I was going to have a lazy day. Do a few quick laps up Brevent then home for a chilled out afternoon. Met Oscar, Arvid and Greg only to realise they were fully geared... Oscar had forgotten to mention it was couloir day.
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| Greg looking into ENSA |
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| Sling harness; not so comfortable |
After conjuring a quick sling harness for the ENSA rappel (uncomfortable to say the least...) I quickly set off ahead of the others so I would have time to grab glacier gear for Rectiligne / Poubelle and meet them on the bus. ENSA was heavily tracked but the snow was grippy and not too moguled. Controlled turns for the entire non-stop descent. Quickly ran home, grabbed some water and my glacier gear and jumped on the bus. Due to a miscommunication Arvid and I made the bus behind Oscar and Greg.
We got up to the top of Bochard expecting to see the others setting up but couldn't find them anywhere / get hold of them. Had they gone top bin for Rectiligne? Arvid was well up for going anyway but I wanted to know exactly why they hadn't gone in before I dropped in. 10 minutes later they rocked up saying they'd done a quick lap. Explained it.
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| Side slipping into Poubelle |
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| Arvid side slipping in |
We entered in without a rope. It was a pretty simple sideslip with a bit of downclimbing. All very easy. In the couloir the snow was fantastic. Soft and sluffy. It was all over too quickly sadly with some nice bigger turns and sluff dodging. We exited onto Pas de Chevre and after a lovely middle section made our way down to the exit. It was an extended shit show of traversing, route finding, bush whacking, rock dodging and to top it off Arvid, at the back, fell 10+m into a gulley. Twice. We eventually established contact and he climbed back up and rapelled down to the couloir we were in. He sacrificed a rope and was pretty shaken, but fine to carry on. We, very cold by this point from waiting, carried on quickly. After jumping some incredibly slow people on the bootpack to the James Bond track we had a quick ski down with no rocks whatsoever.
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| Combat skiing |
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| Vis moved in slightly |
We'd originally planned to do Rectiligne after as well but we'd lost a lot of time so called it off. Better everyone got down slowly and safely.
A great day, made even better by my complete antipathy at the start. It also emphasises the difference the last two years has made. When I first arrived in Chamonix I'd never really skied off piste. The Poubelle looked utterly nuts, even with a rappel and the people I skied with would never have considered it. Now, with a few friends, we'd done it for a fun mid day ski, having climbed in. It's not even that steep (great fun though). Crazy.
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