Low vis le Tour

21st: No one was that bothered by skiing this morning. Even I wasn't pushing people to get out like usual. This cold / man flu is REALLY pissing me off.

Finally got to the lift by 12 with Charlie and Liam. Still having no skis, I borrowed Charlie's DPS. I, being super special, had forgotten my gloves. It was bloody cold and windy as well. Luckily for me (and not so much for him) Charlie's pass had a problem and he couldn't ski. By the time Liam and I made it to the slopes we had two pairs of Charlie's skis and his gloves. What a nice man.

First run of the day was back down the main face. It was OK. There were nice pockets of snow between thick, thick windcrust. The sun even poked out for a bit. Passable. Went to see what my favourite run was like. Again the snow was OK but the visibility was shockingly bad. Couldn't see any contours of rollers / tracks / anything... so we went home. Even got the bubble back down. Pathetic I know. Oh well.

Still. Got home and picked up my new toy's finally ready to go...

Both sets of Charlie's skis... oops

By far the best visibility of the day... says a lot

Setup for the day

YES! Finally

DIY funtimes

18-21st: Hadn't been in the mood for skiing the last few days, especially as I'd sold my only fat skis. Snow wasn't great anyway by all accounts. Maybe up the Midi / Top Bin but we're saving it for good visibility as we haven't scouted it yet this season.

Decided to get my skis sorted instead. DIY Quiver Killered the Coreupt Ascentionist skis I bought off Graham on the cheap. Could have remounted them in the used holes but felt like a challenge. After a few hours, a dodgy drill depth gauge, epoxy up my arm and some fun disassembling the FKS bindings they're all done. Just need to use a vice to bend the brakes out now.

Finally bought some bindings to go on the Shiros. Got a pair of old (but unused) Barons for a decent price!

Flegere Fun

Fri 17th: Work early. Back for 10am and up on the mountain at at 10:30 for another powder day. Met up with Liam. Snow down the black was OK, deep in places, but the base was crusty. Bit of a let down but oh well. 

Started traversing skiers left of chair. Snow REALLY deep. So much better than the other side. Absolutely awesome skiing. Spent 5-10 runs bombing down various routes bouncing off any rock / lip we could find. Landings were so soft. Perfect. Got a couple of videos.

Skied a couple of cool lines on the last 2 runs. Few gullies / couloirs. Hiked up for the last hit of the day but hadn’t spotted it properly. From the top I had no idea which line I'd chosen so chickened out of the big hit – next time!

Got down the mountain to a bidding war off ChamSocial for my skis. Guy paid and picked them up within 5 mins of me leaving Flegere... RIP my trusty S7s, you served me well.

Liam enjoying the S7s

Sure you could see the old lines
but man was the snow amazing

Right hand track

Me on my S7's last year - RIP

Lapping Le Tour

Weds 15th: Le tour again with the Scottish lasses. At the lift by 9:30. The slopes were amazingly quiet. No ques anywhere... perfect.

Headed straight over to the Tête de Balme (big surprise) but saw that the Aiguillette was open for the first time this season. Headed up for a quick few laps. Skier's right was untouched so Jenni and I got fresh tracks the whole way down. Then went skier's right for a few rollers. Snow was good, but heavy windblown with a similar crusty base to Courmayeur. 

Made it round to the chair to find the same. Very windblown in places but the sheltered parts were awesome. Deep and soft. Did the same rock drop as before and got a nice video of it.

Dropped off the main face to find it had a nasty windcrust. Agreed to finish with a run down by the Col de Balme poma. I say finish but the snow was so much better and less wind affected here we did another 5+ laps, each time finding fresh snow to ski.

The last lap we came closer to the Arve poma for the best snow of the day.

All this a day after snowfall. All these fresh lines right next to the piste. Crazy. Especially when anything under the chair was moguled.

Got home and went climbing with Flynn. Some decent problems up at the wall now and I'm definitely getting better.

Courmayeur MK 2

Tues 14th: Second trip to Courmayeur with Charlie and the Scottish lasses. I was campaigning for Le Tour as usual, and from reports it sounds like the Chamonix side got more snow. Oh well, it was still a great day.

Snow was good powder although a hard crusty base 20-30cm below the surface on anything open. Places with shelter had caught slightly more snow, especially the trees.

Did lots of steep tree runs upping the speed each time, really fun. Then multiple laps of the Youla gondola as soon as it opened doing various routes. Charlie and I split from the girls and did the couloir twice. Entrance still sketchy. Top layer of the snow had all slid but the bottom powder field was great. That said we did catch a few rocks.

Finished by dropping off the back at the end. VERY slabby and lots of avalanche debris. Having been wind loaded the slides were much bigger than elsewhere were they were just sluffs. No chance I'd do it again in those conditions. Just got out of there ASAP.

Charlie ready to drop in

2nd Couloir: No idea how I dodged those
rocks when I did it last week

Charlie half way down the couloir

Sluffs ahoy

Tanya with Charlie in the background

Jenna coming out of the trees

Happy gondola down

Lazy Days

9th-13th: Lazy days. Still knackered so didn't do much apart from work and climb. Saturday was chilled out - only 6 hours. The lack of work at the moment is seriously weird.

Snow was crap so did very little. Went up Flegere on Monday to do some avalanche training. Did a single run down Floria on the way to the ARVA park and it was awful although the top 50m was great... the rest was slushy, patchy, rocky crap.

Tuesday Liam, Charlie and I went over the basics of crevasse rescue in preparation for lapping the Midi later in the season.

Avalanche training - more soon

The moon behind the Aiguille Vert / du Dru

First trip to Courmayeur

Weds 8th: Up early to go to Courmayeur for the first time for a nice day out. Joined Liam, his dad, Dan and Roberta. Met up with loads of others on the slopes / at lunch.

Spent most of the day with Dan and Sunny with a cameo from girl Charlie. Fresh tracks 3 days after the last snow… couldn’t believe it, thought it was going to be a piste day. Awesome. Was skiing without the base boards of my boots (got them adjusted and they forgot to put them back in). Annoying but not the end of the world as for the most part the snow was good.

Did a few near-piste runs as well as some trees and moguls. Had an amazing pizza lunch. Lines off the very top gondola looked epic but the conditions were deadly (3 and windloaded) and people didn’t have avalanche gear so did the safer, already skid, couloir under the Youla gondola 4-5x. Epic run although sketchy entry (getting worse each time) effectively walking down rock due to lack of snow. Then it opened out and you could really open up the turns. Rock band in the middle of the powder field below made for some cool rock drops / couloir runs too. Snow was a little crusty but still amazing. Really good day.

Soon as I got back went climbing with Flynn again. Got home with my hands too shot to open a beer. Well deserved night in.

Dan, Sunny, girl Charlie at the top of the couloir

Big calzone for lunch