Glacier du Mort

Thurs 6th: Got home on Weds to a text from Sunny asking if I wanted to do Glacier Mort early tomorrow. YES, yes I did. 8:45 at Flegere... cool. Woke up early feeling like death. Both my knees were aching from charging all the chopped up snow yesterday. Decided to at least get up and give it a go, could always turn back.

Waiting for Sunny in the MASSIVE Flegere lift queue left me even less enthusiastic. The others were already up so started the hike well ahead of us. Decided to bootpack instead of the faff of skinning. The bottom was pretty shit. I was following Sunny who was lighter and so I kept falling through the track. My socks / boots got soaked. A couple of skiers overtook me whilst I was stripping down half way up but I was around them and past another load of people on the bootpack. Got to the top and met the others; Jon, Julia, Mike, Steven, Maya and Matt.

After a quick turn around we were straight on to the traverse. Couldn't be bothered to gear back up. Big mistake. Dug a tip whilst not paying attention and frontflipped with only a t-shirt on. Cold... Got started on the second couloir up to the ridge. Again I was sinking in a lot until I started climbing the refrozen debris from the wet slide the day before. To my surprise I powered up without tiring and Sunny and I reached the top right after Matt. Few (naked) photos and general laughs then we headed up the final climb to pointe Alphonse Favre.

Slight nudity

Final scramble to the top

After group photos Sunny, Matt and I decided to break away. A group of eight is way too big to enjoy the decent properly and the others wanted to have lunch up the top. We dropped in, skiing the two steep sections at the top carefully. Then we went for it. One massive pitch took us almost to the bottom, all of us cheering the awesome snow. Another short pitch and we were down on the traverse. Sure the downhill was over soon, but man was it gooooood.

Sunny with the first Col in the background

Mont Blanc poking over the Aiguilles Rouges

Group shot

The descent

Bus, another bus, shower, beers at Monkey and Munster. Perfect day.

Two days in La Clusaz

So if anyone asks me I'll say that La Clusaz is definitely the most beautiful resort I've been / drive to. Our family friends have a two bedroom flat out in La Clusaz that once a year for my childhood we'd cram both families in. This is where I learnt to ski (and also snowboard in the dark teenage years) so understandably it has a pretty big place in my heart. By extension I guess it played a big part in my being in Chamonix. Not much to live up to... I Popped over for two days to see my parents and our family friends the Howards to celebrate Ruth's birthday.

Merdassier - where I learnt to ski

Aiguille

View from the flat

Tues 4th: First day the visibility was awful, but as I was only there for two days we headed up to the other side of the resort to La Balme. Yeah, the one made famous by Candide Thovex. That one. We did a few laps of various runs on the way there, a few tree runs and then a couple of laps up the top of Balme. For the most part we couldn't see a thing but the snow was great. Highlight was traversing off Lapiaz into a big bowl of hardly tracked, although slightly windcrusted, powder. Good day but a bit of a shame about the visibility.

In the evening we went out for a proper Savoyard dinner to celebrate Ruth's birthday. Who doesn't love meat cooked on a stone. Amazing meal.

Gorgeous

Birthday tart

Weds 5th: Woke up to a glorious day. Perfectly clear. Bullied my parents into getting up (how the tables have turned) and we were on the slopes by 9. It was a good choice as now there was visibility all the powder was obvious and so the skiing was excellent. I was determined to go back to Balme now there was visibility so we made our way over again, stopping to do a few of the steeper runs of my childhood en route. They didn't have quite the edge anymore... I lead my parents off the back on some weird traverse I'd vaguely spotted the day before. Oops.

We got to Balme and I was determined to have a bit of fun. I wiped out first run on the moguled runout off a drop I'd eyed up the day before. Then after a great lap below the chair with my dad I went off on my own for two fast and playful runs. Then landed the same drop although the brutal moguls punished my knees. I finished by doing a couple of hikes. For less than 2 minutes hike there was a mini, completely untracked, Hotel Face. Steep, deep and untracked with some rock bands to play with. Bear in mind this was three days after a snowfall... Amazing way to end.

Right side of Balme

The drop

Main bowl, Hotel-esque Face circled

Playing about down the main face

Fresh tracks baby

Making the most of the terrain

My advice? GO TO BALME. The terrain is awesome. To get there take the Col des Aravis in the day to take in the stunning views La Clusaz has to offer.

Lazy days Mk. 2

Fri 28th: So we got pretty drunk on Weds/Thursday and big cuz made me paromise to not wake him up without eight hours sleep (fair enough as I was knackered too). Couldn't find anyone to go up the Midi with so eventually we got up Brevent to fresh snow! Oh yeahhhh.

The cause of our laziness

First run we did the same couloir below Cornu as we did last year which was fun. The couloir was fine, but tight on my 193s. The sluff at the bottom was actually nice and soft. Unfortunately the usually awesome, playful runout was crap. Any snow below about 2200m was crap. Bit of an anti-climax. Oh well. Dropped off the back to see if we could find different conditions. Nope, snow was ruined even higher up (weird?) Did a few more runs and the vis closed in, similar to Weds, so we called it.

Morning sky... stunning

Euan finding some good snow

Top of the couloir

In the afternoon we chanced our luck up the Midi, hoping it might clear. I really wanted to show him it even if we couldn't ski it. Got up but the visibility was awful. It did make it quite impressive though being blasted by a blizzard on the open platforms. Discovered that Euan had vertigo so made him look over all the precipices and tried to get him in the glass box. The second he wasn't so keen about. Probably a good thing we didn't do the VB as getting vertigo on the arête might be interesting... On the way down the vis opened up slightly which was nice. Got a real sense of what you were on.

Not too near the edge...

Beers up the Midi

Trying to get Euan in to the Glass Box

Went for a quick walk around town, some awesome beer and a humongous plate of Nachos at MBC. Nice end to a good three days. Cheers Euan!

Biggggggg plate of nachos

Back to powder ways

Thurs 27th: Second day of Euan's visit. Hoping to show him better than yesterday's s**t show. Up early to reserve Midi tickets just in case. Got first bin... but couldn't find a third person and didn't feel comfortable doing it just the two of us. Such a shame. He was up for a fun cruisey day anyway so instead we headed off to Le Tour. We were up in Vallorcine by 9:45 and after no queues up at Tête de Balme. A lap under the chair had pockets of great snow, lots of wind lips, but also lots of crust beneath. Still fun bouncing down although the snow wasn't decent enough to just do it without regard.

Le Tour beautiful as ever with features everywhere

We bumped into Liam and Sonny and decided to hit the bowls skiers' left of the chair past the cornices. Snow was awesome. Lots of playful turns, rollers and general enjoyment. After another lap of the same we dropped even further left. Some deep and some crusty snow and some big tree deposits. Snow between the trees still had an icy crust below though so we skipped the majority of it, just choosing the good stuff. We shot off for another of the same whilst Liam and Sonny waited for more people. Moved off into the main face to see what it was like. Hardly any tracks down the bowls to mid-station although the snow wasn't nearly as good. Dropped in for a quite bite to eat and a coke then decided to find what was left on the main bowl.

Messing around

The main bowl is a bit mellow but surprisingly, at 2pm, the snow was still soft and untracked if you knew where to look. After a few more mellow runs the clouds rolled in so we headed back to Vallorcine. One final run down Tête de Balme with some decent fresh pitches and we were down.

Still loads of untracked by 2pm... what...?

Rollers everywhere

A really nice chilled out day. I really enjoyed it as it was the first in ages I wasn't carrying a rope / harness and could just relax. Amazing how the snow didn't deteriorate like usual, even on the South facing aspects. Also really glad to finally show Euan a good time after having talked up Chamonix so much.

Epic day riding...

Weds 26th: Ok so the title is a little (read massive) lie. Pretty big anticlimax of a day. My big cousin Euan is down for three days; the one who I used to look up to (hah) and made me jealous with his antics during years in Deux Alpes... Who's laughing now you're married and living in England eh, eh!

Anyway... We got ready and left for Brevent... well until we realised his £600 board had completely delaminated and was useless. After a trip to LOCAL to rent a replacement we headed to Concept to try and get it repaired. The tech kindly told us it was completely f**ked and that any repair wouldn't hold.

Hmm... £600 board shouldn't look like that

We finally got up Brevent and sampled the rather poor snow. Harsh sun and high freezing temperature had ruined everything. A quick lap of Bozon and Cornu confirmed this. Piste fine. Off-piste refrozen lumpy crap. We were on the magic carpet chair back home when we saw a guy hit the features just above the track from the Brevent bubble. The snow looked OK so why not.

Our playground of late (Midi) poking through

Over the rockband

Untouched lines left of photo

It was powder... Oh yes! Few nice little hits and lines. Awesome. We headed down for lunch.

In the afternoon we headed up to Le Tour as Euan had (rightly) heard good things about the natural features. We made it up to a complete whiteout. Even I, having skied Le Tour endlessly, almost got lost on the traverses. We made it round to Tête de Balme and on the way up the vis closed in again. Home for beers.

Not sure those two tiny lines counted as a powder day, instead it was the first poor snow day since January. It's a hard life in Chamonix... Unlucky cousin. At least we have something to look forward to tomorrow.

Tomorrow... YES!

Steeps!: Glacier Rond

Mon 24th: Our original plan yesterday was to ski the Glacier Rond before it got skied out but for various reasons we ended up touring. Last night Ryan and I decided to just go for it and we persuaded Tom Tom to join us. None of us had done it before but we were sure of the route. We knew the conditions would not be ideal but that we could rappel if necessary. I managed to beg another day off work (still worked the evening). Yes!

Target no. 3

Met them at the Midi at 8:10 (agreed 8am) to find I was late... What? They haven't opened it that early in months. We got on the second bin of the day along with Seth Morrisson and Nate Wallace. We headed straight off and started bootpacking to the Simond refuge. Whilst we were getting ready Seth, Nate +1 shot past. A brief chat revealed they were off to ski the untracked West couloir, a different exit to the standard Rond exit couloir. They said something about giving them some room although the speed they skied it meant we didn't need to bother.

Getting to the top wasn't too bad although it is pretty exposed. Had to kick turn above a massive drop. Then the first traverse was... very sketchy. No fresh snow was left at all from yesterdays dump, it had all sluffed off. At this point I really wished I'd sharpened my edges and that my skis weren't fully rockered. Made it to the spine where we slowly made our way down. Turning at 45-50 degrees on boilerplate with the occasional morsel of fluff was interesting. After a few turns my confidence was up so I pushed on ahead. The snow skiers' right looked far better so I traversed over -  again sketchy as. The snow was soooo much better. Nice linked turns without fear. Not untracked, but great snow.

Exposed entrance

Not an ideal place to kick-turn

Almost bulletproof first traverse, edging HARD

Spine

Tom Tom traversing back to the exit couloir

After a quick 15m rappel into the couloir we were left with refrozen cut up crud. But everyone's confidence was sky high having done the hard part. We made our way down, occasionally finding some shaded aspects that were still good and exited over the Bergschund and avalanche debris. 

Ryan at the top of the exit couloir

Quick rappel in

After that it was a matter of working our way through the Bossons glacier. Fresh, soft snow everywhere and an easy exit. The only hitch was a short rappel off an Abalakov thread from a serac. The exit couloirs and trees had some fantastic untouched snow and some fun pillow lines. My legs were knackered from yesterdays tour but they were too good to pass up. Had some fun popping off them until I could no longer turn. Made it back down the icy track to town. Easy.

Mini rappel down a serac

Tom Tom checking out Bossons glacier

Fun pillow lines 

All in all it was a massive confidence boost. That said I definitely wouldn't ski it again in conditions like that. It was a fun adventure once but it's not worth the added risk. It also left all three of us completely knackered. Amazing how much energy focus and tension saps.

First tour up the Midi

Sun 23rd: Second powder day in a row... Missed the first due to it being a Saturday - seriously every Saturday is a Bluebird / powder day I swear.

Up at 3am for my only transfer of the day, knackered but happy to have the day to ski. After an hour of sleep I ran down the Midi gear-less to meet the others and check reservations. Standard shit show. One woman was demanding passes for every ticket, the other was just giving them out left right and centre. I didn't have a pass so I joined the huge queue, majorly pissed off and pretty ratty. After 5 mins Ryan at the front got a reservation for me... awesome. Ran back home to get changed and ready. Also bought some new poles en route and made an awesome sandwich.

Busy arête is busy

Red our improvised plan, Green where we skied down 

Up the top Ryan and I split off from the others and waited for Dave, Emily and Mad Dog who were a few bins behind. Our aim was the Col du Tacul, a 900m vert tour skiers right of the Seracs du Geant. We headed off down Petits Envers finding fresh powder most of the way. In places it was too deep to move, others the tracks from yesterday were very visible although still great to ski over. Emily was nursing an injury so decided to split off and head home.

Ryan and the Seracs du Geant

I started the skin first as I knew I'd be struggling. I had my fat skis on, almost 3kg on each foot over Dynafit setups. Doesn't sound like much but my god... Ryan passed me after a while, Dave followed soon after (that man is a machine - put both of us to shame) and MD stayed behind fighting with his own fat skis. After about 350m vert the others stopped and waited. We decided to go for the alternate Col. MD was done. Said he'd wait for us for an hour or catch the next group who skied past. The three of us carried on up to around 610m vert where another group passed us. They said the other side was a 50m rappel. Our ropes weren't long enough, MD was still waiting and we didn't feel comfortable with him skiing down alone. We chose to ski down rather than doing anything stupid (lucky because I was knackered). Unfortunately MD had already started off on another route but got down fine.

Ryan and Dave above

Skinning from the seracs left of photo

Instead of retracing our steps along the glacier we chose the steep faces skiers' right. The first pitch was heavenly. Did a mini traverse to the steeper section. The snow was unbelievable. Could bounce turns so easily. This is what makes it all worthwhile. All the exhaustion was gone and replaced by sheer joy. Another few pitches and we were down on the mer de glace. Awesome. It was even more fun because we were all comfortable enough to do long pitches and so it was less stop-start than usual.

Only tracks with Ryan on his way down

Our exit - tracks furthest left of the right exit

Happy days!