Sunday, January 30th, 2011
Busy boys on the other side of the mountain
The Italian friends Davide Capozzi and Luca Rolli accompanied with French boys Roch Malnuit, Laurent Dupré and Lionel Hachemy did a probable first decent of the couloir south-west of Aiguilles du Brouillard the 17th of January. Well done!
Photo: Rolli & Capozzi
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Saturday, January 29th, 2011
Real skibums can cook!
Amazing dinner with the Finnish rock n roll skiers, Skipe Oivo (masterchef), Jari Ikkelä and Jani Johansen. Note the big Pastis bottle on the table.
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
The northeast face of Mt Buet – In the search for pow…
Today I skied the northeast face of Mt Buet in amazing snow conditions together with my friend Felix Hentz. It was one of the greater runs of the season. Top to bottom in great snow except the runnels and some areas that the wind had transformed to crust, but if you played the line choice right following ridges you got excellent skiing in knee-deep powder snow.
Mt Buet is the crown jewel for people ski touring in the mountain range north of the Chamonix valley, the Aiguilles Rouges. Access from Flegere via the Crochues-Bérard traverse makes the approach easy and you will be on a ski touring highway all the way to the top. Not so romantic, but then again you will rarely have to do any tracking saving your energy for the decent.
From the top you will leave the people with speed suits behind dropping in from a cornice heaven to a wild not to steep (but still serious) mountain face. Then, finally down on the glacier follows a rock n roll river to ski, fight, jump and survive before back in Le Buet for a coffe…
A film from the search for powder will be coming soon…
The race for the mountains
Felix changing to skins, Le Buet in the background
View from the top
View towards the lowlands
Checking the line from the top
Felix in the pow
The face
Going towards the rock n roll canyon
Friday, January 28th, 2011
The film from Col de L’Aiguille Verte
Here is the film from the other week when I skied Col de L’Aiguille Verte.
Check out more of Bjarne Sahléns films at endlessflow.posterous.com…
Friday, January 28th, 2011
Another run in the Cosmiques…
I wanted Daniel to get a bit of Chamonix feeling before he went home, so today I went up to Aiguille du Midi with him and good friend Felix Hentz to have a quick run down Couloir des Cosmiques. It was warm and calm up on the lift station and there where not many skiers going up with the first bin. We traversed over to the couloir and we could from the start feel that the skiing would not be great, but not that we expected anything else. We down climbed to the first anchor and used two rappels to get to where the skiing starts.
The skiing was a mix of hard snow, a few patches of soft recycled snow and breakable crust. But, it was warm with no wind and no one around which still made the experience pretty good. Lower down the traverse trough the glacier was easy done which is good to know when the long awaited powder finally will arrive. Because it has to come, doesn’t it?
We choose to not ski the whole way down to town, maybe we are getting old or something but we didn’t feel up for bush whacking with a hard to find snow cover, so we started traversing to the mid station. Weirdly no one had put in the normal track, so we made the high traverse over and where back in town in good time for lunch. Thanks boys, for a good morning…
Felix checking the run
Daniel rapping
Daniel skiing
The exit
Putting in the traverse
Friday, January 28th, 2011
Another run in the Cosmiques…
I wanted Daniel to get a bit of Chamonix feeling before he went home, so today I went up to Aiguille du Midi with him and Felix Hentz to have a quick run down Couloir des Cosmiques. It was warm and calm up on the lift station and there where not many skiers going up with the first bin. We traversed over to the couloir and we could from the start feel that the skiing would not be great, but not that we expected anything else. We down climbed to the first anchor and used two rappels to get to where the skiing starts.
The skiing was a mix of hard snow, a few patches of soft recycled snow and breakable crust. But, it was warm with no wind and no one around which still made the experience pretty good. Lower down the traverse trough the glacier was easy done which is good to know when the long awaited powder finally will arrive. Because it has to come, doesn’t it?
We choose to not ski the whole way down to town, maybe we are getting old or something but we didn’t feel up for bush whacking with a hard to find snow cover, so we started traversing to the mid station. Weirdly no one had put in the normal track, so we made the high traverse over and where back in town in good time for lunch. Thanks boys, for a good morning…
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
A different kind of workday in cham…
all photos by Daniel Rönnbäck, check out his blog; danielronnback.blogspot.com
