Col de Cristaux

Sun 12th: Col de Cristaux - refrozen / powder

Ryan and I had been talking had turned back on this pretty much a year to the day ago. It is a pretty wicked line but gets blasted by the morning sun. Colin and Craig joined us. We got to GM early doors, Ryan and Craig bought tickets. Ryan's suddenly stopped... his face darkened. He'd only forgotten his skins... He went back solo, poor bastard.

Craig with Colin in the distance

The remaining three jumped on the Plan Joran and made the third top bin of the day. I knew how much sun the face got so kept the tempo high. Colin started skinning first and we kept a decent pace with Craig lagging behind. I started well behind having completely stripped off but caught up quickly. Colin's chosen track turned out to be a bit of a bugger and took us round too high and we lost a lot of time navigating around / over snowbridges. We arrived at the face to see that it had already sluffed heavily the day before and refrozen. Good stuff. 

We'd finished transitioning and had a snack by the time Craig arrived. It was already later than we'd planned for and Colin and I pushed on not wanting to let the snow soften further, advising Craig to come either right away / to leave it. We crossed a snow bridge over the bergschrund and started the boot pack. Craig followed half an hour later and managed to break through the bridge... A sobering moment and a big lesson to all of us. He turned back and met up with Ryan who had caught up. 

Colin being baked alive

Long way down, long way to go

The boot pack was absolutely scorching in the sun. Mercifully the middle section was in the shade where the temperature dropped to almost too chilly... The final third was spent longing for the chilly shade once more. The boot pack was longer than I expected after the dog leg but we got up pretty fast. We met two scandies at the top and three french climbing down from the rocky col above (unskiable at the time). We opted to let them all go rather than rush down. Instead I rigged an anchor and we grabbed a bite to eat whilst enjoying the spectacular view. The break ended up being quite long as the group in front of us faffed for ages, but eventually they made it down and we transitioned.

Delightful place for a spot of lunch

The scandies ripping it

The snow at the top was heavy spring snow and so the turns were fun but hard work. The middle section was amazing consolidated powder that had been shaded from the sun for the last few days. Excellent big turns. Great fun. The bottom had refrozen and was nothing interesting. The scandies' tracks were clearly visible meaning we were only slightly too late. We jumped the bergschrund and begun the long descent, happy with the great line behind us.

Colin's drop in POV shot

Colin enjoying the good cold snow 

Jumping the bergschrund to finish

A great day but there were errors and plenty of time wasted. Need to make sure it doesn't happen again. I also had an interesting chat with myself up the boot pack wondering whether anything much more exposed is worth it. A question I'm still yet to answer...