There can't be too many ways that are better to start a new year,
than by being out in the mountains, with bucket loads of fresh snow, sunny,
clear, cold skies, incredible views, and days filled with adventures shared
with like-minded new friends. Where the hardest decision of the day is whether
to put some fresh tracks in this untouched vast expanse of deep soft "hero
snow", or the equally attractive looking section of slope just over
there...argh....such a difficult decision! ;-)
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| Fresh tracks coming down the Gros Rognon onto the Vallee Blanche |
After an epic 19 hour solo drive to get
there, I arrived in La Grave early on a Sunday morning, to meet Lucy and Jake,
and lots of their friends, apparently just in time for some incredible
conditions. The night before I arrived the snow gods had obviously decided to
be kind, and dump a much needed fresh load of silky soft powder in the French
Alps. There had been tales of bare, patchy snow cover, and normally
well-covered rocks poking out to trash the bases of your skis and provide
additional hazards to avoid throughout December, so I had definitely arrived at
the right time. Even better, the skies had cleared and for most of the week we
were treated to cold, sunny, alpine conditions, keeping the fresh snow soft,
and making for the kind of weather you wish for when out in the Alps in winter.
Lucy and I opted for a chilled out first
day at Monetier les Bains, part of the Serre Chevalier ski area, and some fab
lift-accessed off piste in the trees. Most people there were predominantly
skiing on piste, so we were treated to run after run of soft light powder and
fresh tracks with no-one around, a great way to find my ski-legs again after a
couple of years off, and to get the first couple of crashes out of the way and
start to relax a bit! The benefit of powder is that at least it’s soft when you
land!
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| Sunshine and snow = big smiles |
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| Lucy at Monetier |
La Grave is famous for it’s classic easy
access (ie roadside) ice climbing, but also amongst skiers as some of the most
easily-accessible and varied off-piste terrain in the Alps. One very long lift
system (plenty of time to eat your sandwiches, faff with kit, discuss the state
of the world economy etc etc) takes you up to the edge of the glacier, and a
multitude of options for descending. There are no pistes, no marked runs, and
therefore no inexperienced skiers. This is big, serious, mountain terrain,
where without good mountain sense, you could easily find yourself in trouble.
There are steep, narrow couloirs, cliffs, ice falls, dense trees, rocks and
other hazards lurking under the surface of the snow, variable snow conditions,
and of course the risk of avalanches. It’s also North facing, so whilst you can
see the sun on the other side of the valley, it never touches you on the hill,
and it can therefore be bitterly cold. It can feel an intimidating place as you
step under the rope at the top for the first time! But the skiing is totally
awesome. I was lucky to be surrounded by a group of people who have been
visiting the area for a long time, and had an in depth knowledge of the layout
of the mountain.
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| Welcome to the La Grave adventure playground.... |
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| Hilda enjoying the awesome terrain |
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| Ruth heading down on a slope that's steeper than it looks! |
What followed was an epic day…one long run followed another,
deep snow, great skiing, a tricky, steep, rocky and icy couloir entry, a
beautiful run of fresh tracks in “hero pow” on the glacier…and just when I
thought my legs couldn’t take any more, I seemed to find myself in the last
group of 4, where an executive decision was made to race half-way down the
mountain to get the last lift back up from the mid-station. My thighs were
screaming, the thin, cold air was making my lungs burn, but I still didn’t know
the mountain well enough to make my own way down, so I had to try and keep up!
We reached the lift just in time, and I was promised more stops on the last run
down. From having got on the first lift at 9am, we skied non-stop, and finished
that last run in the dark, discovering what the term “combat skiing” really
meant on the way. Tight trees, stream crossings on tiny snow bridges, icy
narrow tracks, traverses above big drops, rocks and bare earth…not easy to
negotiate your way around when your legs feel totally destroyed! Needless to
say, I slept pretty well that night!
New Years Eve we awoke to another day of
weather that Dave aptly described in his best French accent as “Grand Uber Beau
Temps”. A leisurely tour up from Le Chazzelet took a big group of us up to
above a vast untouched snow field of an aspect and angle that were a good
option, given the current high avalanche risk.
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| We're going on a pow hunt.... |
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| Touring up to the pointy peak top left to find some fresh tracks! |
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| Touring up from Le Chazzelet |
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| Sunny skies and freshies :) |
Unfortunately, the snow pack
throughout the Alps has been pretty unstable at the start of this season. Put
simply, due to the conditions and temperatures in December, there is a very
weak, unstable layer in the snowpack, which after a whole load of new snow
falling on top of it, means the chances of natural and human triggered avalanches
occurring are very high on many slopes. There have sadly been a lot of
avalanche victims already, and a great deal of caution, knowledge and careful
conditions and forecast studying is needed in deciding where and where not to
go. I’ve been very lucky to be skiing with, and staying with and near friends and
others who are guides, instructors, or locals with a good knowledge of the
area, and so have been able to ask questions, learn a lot, and add to the
general snow safety knowledge I’ve built up over the years I’ve spent in the
mountains. Every day’s a school day and all that….
We saw in the New Year in one of the bars of La Grave, and despite
feeling that ever present sense of sadness that it was the start of another
year without Gareth, and remembering all the New Year’s Eves we’d shared
before, I was surrounded by new like-minded friends, and know that he would
have thought that being in the mountains and having fun, was an awesome way to
start a New Year. I didn’t really feel happy and excited enough to get involved
in dancing, but there were plenty of people to talk to, and adventures for the
following day to plan!
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| 1st January 2014...a good way to start the New Year |
Whilst most of the group had decided to take a rest day to recover
from hangovers, especially as the forecast had been uncertain, it was just Jon,
Rachael and I who headed out on a bright and sunny New Years Day, to tour up from
Le Chazzelet, and go in search of more untouched “neige de hero” and freshies
in the pow…and we certainly found it!
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| Our hidden valley :) |
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| Jon breaking trail |
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| Rachael's first ski tour...I think she'll be hooked :) |
Dropping into a hidden valley, we were
treated to incredible soft, forgiving snow, and a sense of total remoteness in a
beautiful area. Thick, fresh snow, glittering in the sun just seems to make
everything clean, and kind of softens the sound around you too, making it seem
completely peaceful and still. It was staggeringly beautiful, and a fantastic
way to spend the first day of 2014.
The following day was Snowmageddon. There’s
something that still makes me feel as excited as a small child in a sweet shop
when I wake up in a morning and see big snowflakes falling from the sky, and
this was one of those days. In fact it snowed heavily all day, and a group of
us spent the day shredding deep powder in the trees at Monetier. Unfortunately,
if you crash in deep soft snow and lose a ski, it can take a loooooong time to
find it, as unfortunately Jon and Lucy both discovered, as well as the phrase “No
friends on a powder day!”…but they did both eventually find them thankfully!
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| Silky soft snow in the trees at Monetier |
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| Lucy gets her request of only wanting to ski in fresh powder! |
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| Jake dropping in |
As I don’t ski often enough to warrant or afford to have several
sets of skis, mine are a do it all, one ski for touring, freeride, piste and
off-piste kind of ski….which whilst I love them, means when it’s a powder day
and everyone has their super fat powder skis out to float on the surface of the
deep stuff, I’m more ploughing through it with my skis several feet under, or
leaning way further back than I want to to stop my tips from burying themselves…oh
well…when I win the lottery…;)
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| Les Drus in the sun |
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| Staring at giants |
Following New Year week, I drove with Lucy to Chamonix….ah
Chamonix, it’s always good to be here J The drive up the Chamonix valley always fills
me with excitement and awe as you look up at the towering giants of mountains
around you. It’s actually the very first place I skied as a four year old in
the Panda Club in Argentiere, and after so many amazing summer trips here, I’d
been really looking forward to spending some of the winter here. Jim and Alison
kindly let me stay with them for a few days until I could move into my rented
flat in Les Houches, and it was lovely to catch up with them both, and to get
out skiing with Jim, Ian and Lucy over the next few days.
It’s now a week since it snowed, and in fact it’s been sunny, warm
and clear blue skies all week, but thanks to the opportunities to get up high
on the glaciers, we’ve been finding soft powder all week!
The first day here we spent skiing the deepest snow I’ve ever been
in from the top of the Grands Montets lift, down onto the Glacier d’Argentiere.
Snow so deep that sprays of powder hit your face on every turn, making you feel
like you’re a skiing goddess in a ski movie…”neige de hero” indeed!
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| Thanks to James Thacker for the above photos and somehow making me look like I knew what I was doing! |
Then it was through the tunnel to Italy and Cormayeur, where it
seems there was even more snow than on the other side of Mont Blanc. With the
top lifts only having been opened that day for the first time since the fresh
snowfall, there were endless opportunities for freshies, and ear to ear smiles…I
was beginning to think I’d now only been able to ski in deep powder!
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| Jim shredding it through the trees |
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| Sunshine and snowy trees :) |
Since then we’ve had 2 days up on the Vallee Blanche, one purely
gravity assisted descending, and the second a bit of touring up towards the
Dent du Giant to find more fresh soft snow. At this time of year the walk down
the snow arête from the Aiguille du Midi Cable car is not equipped with ropes,
and so it’s an airy traverse with crampons and an axe to get down to skiable
slopes. Slightly intimidating, but it has the benefit that fewer guided parties
are on it!
It’s quite a long time since I’ve been on the Mer de Glace, and I’d
forgotten how far it feels like you have to walk up the hundreds of steps to
get from the glacier to the bubble lift that takes you up to the Montenvers
train. It definitely felt like there were more steps up than I remembered….and
there were. On the side of the steps are markers showing the level of the glacier
at various years. When I first climbed in Chamonix in the summer of 2003, the
glacier was 75m higher than it is now….that’s a lot more steps they’ve had to
build each year. Even more staggering, is that I know my Mum and Dad skied the
Vallee Blanche the year I was in Panda Club, which must have been about 1986,
and at that time, they must have pretty much just stepped onto the train! The
glacier is retreating currently at a rate of 30m a year…that’s a huge and very
visible amount….I wonder if I’ll still be lucky enough to be skiing or climbing
in another 30 years time, and how different the Mer de Glace will be then?
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| Lucy heading down towards the Mer de Glace |
So, today’s a rest day, after a tour part way up the Glacier d’Amethystes
and the Col de Tour Noir yesterday made me realise how tired my legs were!
After only ever really having had a week or two to ski each year, I’m used to
skiing every day and not taking any rest days because I don’t want to waste any
precious skiing days. But I’m slowly realising when you’re here for over a
month, you do occasionally need to stop and recover! Still, it’s sunny, clear
and cold, there’s a superb view of beautiful snowy mountains from my apartment balcony,
and though I wish I were sharing it with Gareth, there aren’t many other places
I’d rather be right now J
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| Sunshine lights up fields of super soft powder :) |
