Aiguille du Midi: Couloir Poubelle

Fri 10th: Midi - Couloir Poubelle - spring corn

Chatted to Oskar Thurs eve about the conditions they found in the couloir. Sounded good so Lukas and I headed up 9am to check it out. We left our gear and climbed to the top and had a quick reccy. Lukas' mate Jack had come along to test out his drone and so he snapped a picture to study. It was definitely rockier than the day before. 6+ people had skied it and it had clearly sluffed a lot from Thursday's heat. Snow conditions still looked good though. We climbed back down to the tunnel to grab our gear. A french local (Claire) introduced herself and asked us if she could join us asher partner had let her down for the Gervasutti Tour Ronde. We explained our route, had a chat about experience etc. and she joined us.

Cheers to Jack Layden for all of the drone photos

Getting ready

The three of us climbed back up and clipped in. I was confident so set off first and the conditions were good. A quick stop after the first turn to reposition my axe - note to self: get an adze as they don't try and slip out - and I carried on down. Good steep turns stopping every so often to update the others. I buried my axe above the first rock band and waited for the others. Lukas followed first and didn't seem as comfortable as usual. Claire followed carefully down after. Lukas managed to get stuck a little bit above the first rock band on the wrong side of the runnel. After some thought he decided to climb back out, ski down and meet us at the bottom. Fair enough. I offered to help but he declined. I thought of asking him for his rope, but knew he wasn't a fan of transitions so didn't want to worry him further. Mistake.

View from above the first rock band

Lukas above the first rock band, Claire descending the
first and me rigging the rappel above the second

Claire agreed to continue down with me so I sideslipped the first rock band, axe in hand. The second rock band was much narrower than expected so I started setting up a short rappel as Claire followed down. One too many turns necessitated a rather dicey kick turn to reach the in-situe tatt. A quick rappel and I started to look for an anchor to rappel over the last rock band. I had considered hucking it but Claire wasn't interested. We were down to one 30m rope which was slightly too short to reach over from the anchor I made and there was nothing closer to the rock band. I was just about to lower Claire and attempt the huck when Lukas showed up. He sidestepped up 30m and I let down the rope and dragged his up and we rappeled. I was pretty annoyed at myself for not having the balls to drop it but there was a pretty big crater below from the day before. Oh well. Next time...

Claire descending the first rock band

Setting up the rappel

It took us much longer than expected for such a short run but it was still early. Claire wanted to go to the Cosmiques hut for a beer... why not? Good choice - a nice snack, beer, some stupid photos and good conversation. We left ourselves plenty of time to skin/hike back up the arête and headed down for a few pints at Elevation. Good day. Great company. Iconic line.

Back to where we started

Gaper much

(Probably) the last VB of the season

Thurs 9th: Gros Rognon - heavy fresh snow

Lukas and I got up early doors again and headed up early after a storm to check out the Cosmiques. Waited a good long time at the Midi discussing whether it was worth it / whether to turn back as there hadn't been much snow. Eventually we decided to go for it and skied down the arête - a first for both of us. Upon arrival it was pretty clear that the top of the couloir was awful and it was unclear if it got better. Whilst we spent ages discussing it four french guys showed up. They decided to ski it anyway as they were en route to the Mulets hut. We backed off and skied over to Rognon where we bumped into John, the only skier on the Rognon route who happily joined us.

No Cosmiques sadface

Knowing it was probably our last ski to Montenvers we took it slowly, enjoying the fresh uniform slightly temperature affected powder and taking plenty of photos. We saw the remnants of monster slides everywhere from last Saturday. Absolutely crazy big - the entire zone skier's left of Rognon had slid to the start of the traverse. We continued down happily and took a low traverse and boot pack to the Requin hut, stopped for a snack and to discuss our exit. We decided to scout the requin exit before committing - a good choice as it looked incredibly bare and the temperatures were too high to be safe. We turned back and took a high traverse across salle a manger, the entrance to which had actually been filled in by another monstrous avalanche a few days before. A hasty crossing with large gaps between and we were out.

Taken by John Mallery

Taken by John Mallery

The exit took forever but was pretty fun. Lots of combat skiing/ sidestepping/ slipping over glacier scree / ice / patches of gluey snow. John took his skis off once or twice where safe but Lukas and I just took the pain. Another 3+km of skiing on ice, a quick walk, another few km of ice skiing, a few core shots, a 20 min walk and then climbing the ladders back up to Montenvers. Great fun in terms of adventure but not one to repeat. In the end I only took one massive core shot but I was on my rock skis anyway so who cares...

Big ol' slide

Lakes forming in the salle a manger

Getting pretty bad...

Worse...

Late season powder is always the best...

Thurs 30th: Grand Envers / GM top bin - Blower powder all day...

Arrived at the Midi at 7:50am to reports of 40cm fresh and info at 9am. Not totally convinced by conditions but oh well. Made the first bin easily despite the large queue. As the lift doors closed Lukas' face dropped - he'd left his bag outside. Queue insults, laughter and general hilarity from me whilst he was swore and fretted he'd lost it forever (including his passport - moron). Over an hours wait and we missed first bin because of that...

Moody skies making for a glorious traverse

Lukas asked the lifties to bring it up in the second bin. The guy had a massive grin clearly finding it just as funny as I did. All sorted. Up to the top with Lukas desperately apologising for missing the first bin. Seven people were already on the plan ridge... However three dropped in low and four were heading to Col de Plan. PERFECT. After cutting the slope I dropped in to find epic conditions. Deep and uniform. Incredible skiing.

Lorne et al preparing to drop into the Col de Plan NF

Incredible first pitch from the top

Cutting the slope so Lukas can blast it

Blast it he did

Disliking the pretty open terrain to the requin exit and the avalanche danger we cut off into Petit Envers to skier's right of the rognon. As we descended the snow transitioned to corn but still perfect to ski. Some heavy spring moguls (the worst skiing of the day) and we were crossing the very open salle a manger. The exit was simultaneously way better and way worse than we expected. There was no snow on the lower part but we could ski over the ice to within 10-15 mins of Montenvers. A nice stroll and we were back sunbathing at Montenvers whilst we waited 40mins for the train.

Crossing salle a manger as fast as possible. Thin...

Still skiable honest

Montenvers looking pretty grubby

Liberating

I had been totally apathetic to skiing GM in the afternoon but the morning was so good I figured I'd join Lukas for some spring corn. We arrived at GM at 1:30pm and instead were greeted by hardly tracked cold blower powder and no queues. Insane. After a lap of the face in fresh tracks to mid station I noticed the Alaska looking line skier's left of the face had been skied so we went for a look. A nice big 3m drop to hard mandatory traverse to dodge the rocks immediately below into a steep couloir. Two skier's were hesitantly waiting above looking unwilling and Lukas sounded nervous so I just went for it, admittedly bricking it a little. My edges held and was greeted by face shots all down the couloir. After another of the same the entrance was getting pretty scoured and ropey so we just lapped la face. Each lap the lower sections got slower so for the last few we blasted the bottom of the piste. 6 laps later we were cut short by a closed sign. Damn. A quick Bochard and down the Plan Joran.

Much steeper and rockier than it looks...

Absolutely incredible day. So much better than expected and snapped me out of the existential crisis I've been having recently. Days like this are what it's all about...

End of season fun

My motivation for skiing and updating has been at an all time low for the last few weeks so here goes the end of season in one handy post.

Weds 15th: Tourist lap of the Vallée Blanche

Holly hadn't skied the VB before so I took her up for an afternoon lap to ensure the ice had softened to spring snow. She had been psyched out by a friend saying it was difficult which in turn made me worry she wasn't ready and it was going to be a shit show. Nothing of the sort. Nice easy cruise down the tourist route to skip the steeper pitches of the Rognon. Really cool views of the East face of Tacul. Slowly navigated the huge mogul field (it hadn't snowed in 2-3 weeks) and stopped the other side of the salle a manger for some lunch. A nice easy exit and we were down. Good afternoon.

Not much of note (I'm sure I must've skied just didn't get any photos) until;

Sun 26th: Morning freshies at GM

Charlie and I headed up late after a snowfall as we were feeling lazy. Some good conditions up high with not many tracks. Should've got up earlier but oh well. The snow quickly got VERY sticky so we called it a day after three laps of top bin (two front and one off the back).

Mon 27th: Skiing through glue at GM

Headed up in the afternoon with Lukas to get some spring snow. Unfortunately it was literally impossible to move at all. A few quick laps (including the last Herse of the season )and home. Shame.

Tues 28th: More GM pow (poor base lower down)

Was a little late again due to apathy. Lukas came and Malcolm joined later. Bumped into Gabe and Adam for a bit. The snow wasn't as deep or as good as expected. Yesterdays layer had refrozen and there was 10-15cm on top. Good fun but couldn't completely open up. We saw some people hiking the petite aiguille Verte so I persuaded the others to come. Great choice... It was high and untracked enough to be a perfect 40cm+ of powder. One amazing lap and Malcolm and I headed down, happy to finish on a high.

Didn't want both of his skis...

Weds 29th: Cosmiques in shitty conditions

Joined Oskar for a few Cosmiques laps. The entrance was the best I've seen it but the whole top section had a crust from the day before. However this was infinitely better than the bottom section that had completely slid back to ice. The choice was skiing on hard avvy debris or sheet ice. Did a mixture. Traverse was in surprisingly good nick bar the 1m wide open crevasse that needed jumping and the initial disgusting ice down on the Bossons glacier (full rocker skis without edges...) Oskar begged me to go up again but I flat out refused.

Sat 2nd May: GM rain-crust / soup

Mosied on up to GM for the second to last day of the season with Lukas. We were a little late as the gendarmes were (sensibly) stopping skiers from going up with the 1m+ of fresh unconsolidated snow combined with very high temperatures. Nothing was open really and the snow level was much higher than predicted. Massive avalanches from top bin hammered home how disgustingly dangerous the Midi would've been (and was for those that skied). Jumped on the Bochard to see everything tracked. Lavancher looked clear but I assumed for a reason (Tabe closed). Lukas said he was sure it was open so we headed down. The snow was very hard rain crust. Difficult to ski unless fast and hard turns. Spring snow lower to find the Tabe closed. I whined to Lukas for saying it was open. Walked up and lapped the Bochard a few more times. One lap we traversed all the way over to the Herse (closed) to find equally shitty conditions. Each lap lower down got hotter and stickier. We skied until the late knowing it would be the last real day of the season. Shame to end on such a mediocre day.

Skier triggering the Rond that day - seriously lucky to
escape unscathed - credit Mika Joensu

Can't break through the crust

Big ol' natural wet slides