Monday, February 7th, 2011
Mont Blanc – The wild way – How to walk away a cold and get powder skiing in the sunset
I have, ever since I came to Chamonix the first time, wanted to climb (and of course ski) Mt Blanc early season when you get to be by your self, when there are no tracks and you have to do all the work your self. In a sense – I wanted to climb Mt Blanc when its only me and a friend on the mountain – when the most popular mountain in Europe would just be like any other mountain in the world.
So yesterday I had a go for the realisation of this little dream together with my friend Max Turgeon. I was not to sure about my shape having a fairly heavy cold weighting me down, but two days of rest hadn’t changed the conditions at all so I thought I give it a go.
We went up first bin in the morning up Aiguille du Midi and skied over to the north face of Mt Blanc du Tacul aiming to do the ascent via Tacul and Maudit towards the summit of Mt Blanc.
The north face of Tacul was fairly easy to climb, mostly with skins on but with a few passages over crevasses and seracs slowing us down. Its a completely different story climbing Mt Blanc putting in the track than following the normal motorway that you will find here in the spring or summer. Two years ago I did the climb in three hours from Midi, and now it took a bit over four and a half – being in much better shape.
The north face of Mt Blanc du Tacul
Continuing up the north face of Maudit we found lots of deep snow on places sinking down to our knees in powder snow costing a lot of energy for both Max and me. Add lots of hidden crevasses to jump, climb and avoid and you will understand it took some time getting up the mountain.
Mt Maudit
The last little rise towards the summit of Mt Blanc was luckily hard making it easy to skin up with ski crampons and finally walk with crampons.
I think we both felt like we got the workout we came here for when we clicked in to our skis. But the day was by no means over yet. We had hoped to ski down the west face, normally giving cruisy skiing on open faces down to Val Veny on the Italian side of the mountain, and had taken a chance that we would get some good spring skiing keeping in mind the isotherm was on 3500m and the face is facing the sun.
We had also got warned by our Italian friend Davide Capozzi that the face might be pretty icy, but we wanted to check it out ourselves. Experience says you don’t know too much about conditions before you are actually there, so we went down on the west side to have a look.
However, fifty meters down I found out that what looked like nice easy snowfields rather where a one cm snow layer on blue ice. There was nothing left to do than just put the crampons on and go back up to the ridge and ski down towards Chamonix.
We had now spent about two hours waiting for the sun to warm the snow up and walking back up again the fifty or so meters we had skied down. Trying to do Mt Blanc in a day from first bin, tracking the whole thing and hanging around at the summit for two hours only mean one thing in beginning of February; you wont have to much time to go before it gets dark.
So realising this we started skiing down the hard slopes of the north face. After some crevasse crossing and traversing we ended up on the right track and quickly lost meters skiing various snow conditions with everything from hard transformed snow, breakable crust and a turn here and there in soft snow.
Further down closer to the Grand Mulets hut the snow changed into great recycled powder snow that we would have for the rest of the decent. Imagine this, powder skiing in the sunset with Mt Blancs grand north face as a back drop.All in all that descent gave us about ¼ of shitty snow, 2/4 of so and so snow and ¼ of great powder on a day where the actual climb was the goal and the skiing was done with fairly low expectations.
We got of the glaciated terrain before it got dark and traversed over to the old lift station where we skied down to the track and from there walked down to the tunnel in perfect time for dinner.
The cold, it most have got walked out of my system, because today, I feel great again – although a bit tired in my legs.
Thanks Max for another good day on the mountain.
And Lotti (and Felix), thanks again for the pick up, I realise we are starting to owe you a couple of days taxi service!
Max climbing up Mt Maudit
Climbing Mt Blanc early season involves lots of this
Max and me on the top of Mt Blanc
Max skiing the top ridge of Mt Blanc
About to start skiing the north face of Mt Blanc
Max skiing the north face of Mt Blanc, try to find him – he is in the centre of the photo
Max again
Aiguille du Midi and Les Grand Mulets hut
Max skiing in the sunset
Traversing over the glacier
Skinning back up to the traverse track
Headlamp skiing
Walking down to the tunnel
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Couloir skiing in Switzerland – Part 2 – Sightseeing the beautiful couloirs of Dents du Midi
The next day where to become the great couloir day as we where in one day skiing or climbing six different couloirs in the Dents du Midi range. We started traversing over towards the south couloir of Brèche des Doigts with the sunrise, quickly gaining height in the refrozen snow.
At the brèche we clicked in to our bindings and skied one of the most beautiful couloirs in this part of Europe; the north couloir of Brèche des Doigts. It’s an 800m high truly aesthetic and narrow y formed line with a savage feel to it. The snow was good, giving excellent friction, but was kind of wavy making it fairly tricky to ski on some places.
Finishing the north couloir of Bréche des Doigts we traversed skiers right in to the classic north couloir of Dent Jaune. This is the easiest ski on the whole face, but not really in good skiing conditions right now. But we couldn’t care less, just wanting to ascend the couloir to get access to more fun skiing. The climb up was really easy and it didn’t take long before me and Felix sat up on the col eating lunch. Steph had skied down to town, being happy for the day with the first couloir.
From here we made a few turns on the south face and then traversed over to the south facing couloir between Forteresse and Cathédrale with the plan to drop down in to the infamous north couloir on the other side. Its known to be very narrow and just over 1000m long making it one of the longer couloirs in the Préalps. But its not really one couloir, its more like 3,4 or maybe 5 different couloirs linked together making the route finding not to obvious for someone ambitious enough dropping in from the top.
But well, we found our way, and the skiing was good; some powder but mostly just flat grippy chalk like a dance floor. But about half way down we realised that following the intended line would include lots of down climbing on loose rock or a couple of rappels, as the bottom part was not very well filled in. So we continued light skiers left down to a big snowfield above a huge cliff band. Again with some route finding we found a traverse to the bottom half of the couloir de Soi and linked together a fully skiable variation with just a few meters of down climbing.
Happy to have found a good way down the mountain we kept on going down easy open fields in really good snow down to the tree line where we ended up bush-whacking mixed with some good skiing here and there before we found the trail leading down to the village of La Cour. But the adventure was not over just yet. The snow line was already reached a long time ago and me and Felix was walking down this road that did not seemed built with the intention of loosing any altitude so we started shortcutting steep meadows and jumping electric fence after electric fence ending up muddy and tired down at the bridge at the bottom of the valley. From here only a 20-minute walk stood between us and the train station next to the white church; that we with longing glances had been able to see during the whole descent.
Down the street from the train station I found a signpost for a Pizzeria giving us a well-awaited chance to get a pizza on the run before the train would come a few minutes later.
The rest of the story includes a two missed trains (just), a beer in the center of Monthey and finally a ride from Martigny with Felix’s lovely girlfriend who pitied us to much to say no, when we just had missed the last train to Chamonix.
Thanks again Steph, Felix and of course Lotti for another great adventure…
To get more info about the couloir heaven of Chablais, descriptions, info etc. check http://www.chablais-grimpe.com/ (click ski alpinisme and then Dents du Midi)
Walking over to the south couloir of Bréche des Doigts with the rising of the sun
Climbing the south couloir
The boys at Bréche des Doigts
Looking down the north coulir of Bréche des Doigts
Stephane Shaw skiing
Steph again, Felix in the foreground
Felix Hentz skiing
Felix climbing the couloir de la Dent Jaune
Lunch at the col
Traversing over to the next objective
More walking
The top of the north couloir of Forteresse
Extreme route finding (Photo: Felix Hentz)
Felix skiing one of the narrower bits
Felix skiing with the face in the background
Skiing the meadows
Monthey by night
Lonely train station
Beer time
Tired boys
Thanks Lotti, you are awesome!
Les Dents du Midi (Photo: Stephane Shaw)
The north couloirs of Dent Jaune (left) and Bréche des Doigts (right) (Photo: Stephane Shaw)
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
Couloir skiing in Switzerland – Part 1 – Good snow, beautiful surroundings and an easy day in good company.
I just got back from Switzerland and a two-day ski mountaineering adventure in Chablais and the mountains des Dents du Midi together with friends Stéphane Shaw and Felix Hentz. We took the train yesterday (Wednesday), before noon in Chamonix direction Marecottes. On arrival in this beautiful little village we walked up to the ski station to get up in to the mountains. From the top of the ski area we continued over the back of the mountain via a couloir skiing great snow all the way down to the lake Salanfe, then traversing the lake and climbing the other side to the Refuge Dents du Midi. Surprised by the standard and the location of this little hut we enjoyed a three course meal with red wine planning the next days adventures skiing some of the classic couloirs of the Chablais region starting just a few hundred meters from the hut.
It was a dream coming true to finally be skiing in this region so near to Chamonix, but still so completely different. We did not see another human being on the whole trip, and the mountain have another feel to them resembling more the mountains back in Sweden or the Italian Dolomites. And of course being able to cruise good snow in easy terrain a month after snowfall feels much more like Scandinavia than mountains a few kilometres away from Grand Montets.
The story from the next day is coming up shortly…
On the train Chamonix – Marecottes
Hungry train driver
Walking trough Marecottes
Lift ride
Hiking above Marecottes
Happy boys
Les Dents du Midi, we skied down to the lake and ascended the other side, the hut is on the big plateau just before the peaks
Steph skiing
Traversing the lake
Refuge Dents du Midi
Appero with wine and grapes planing the next day
