Blog
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
A few runs in Brevent
Difficult skiing is making us better skiers, right? Of course it’s true, and that’s why you should ski Brevent at the moment. I went up for a few top to bottom runs today just to get a bit of air when my climbing partner for the day couldn’t make it. Really good snow on a few places got mixed with refrozen snow runnels, ski tracks and avalanche debris on this cold day. One would think that right now the skiing are probably crushing many egos and is to say the least educative. We like it don’t we? But some more snow would still be nice though…
Its still possible to get a few good turns without walking…
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
The film from Les Courtes
Here comes the film from last week on les Courtes filmed and edited by Bjarne Sahlén. Skiers featured are Giulia Monego, Morgan Sahlén, John Minouge, David Rosenbarger and myself.
For more goodies check out Bjarnes blog at endlessflow.posterous.com
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Seeing the difference in culture through the subject of skiing
Check out this article covering steep skiing from the American perspective in Powder magazine. Click here.
And… Keep your eyes open for the next issue of Ernest Mag coming soon on the streets of Chamonix or ernestmag.com for an article showing you the French ditto. Click here.
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Ceci est…- Jeff Foster
For anyone feeling down or for those of us searching for something mysteriously hidden in the future…
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
In Skijournal
Fredrik Schenholm shoot this picture at the Låktatjåkka hut close to Björkliden, Sweden, last year in Febuary. Now it is appearing in issue 4-3 of SkiJournal.
See more of Fredriks great photos and adventures at www.schenholm.com
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
Col de l’Aiguille Verte – direct
The adventure of the day for me was again set to the Argentiere basin. Col de l’Aiguille Verte has been looking really filled in, specially for being January, so I took a chance and went there today with filmer Bjarne Sahlen. He belayed me over the bergschrund and then stayed in the valley filming and taking pictures.
It was excellent conditions with chalky snow that’s easy to climb and great to ski. My plan was to do the normal route climbing the face in the middle and then traverse lookers right on the upper snowfields in to a hidden (on the picture) couloir. I have done it two years a go with David Rosenbarger and we had a great and steep run, but I have for years been looking at the direct line to the col to the right of the hanging glacier. Today the face was even more filled in than last time and I started talking to Bjarne on the radio while I was climbing. He thought he saw a kind of filled in line all the way to the top. It still was fairly thin, but it was better than I ever seen it so I thought I had to give it a try.
Col de l’Aiguille Verte is famous for being steep, but I got amazed on how much steeper the direct line where. Small and thin snow patches where quickly leading me to the top of the run, but I also had a hard time understanding if it was going to be possible to ski slopes as steep like that. I could feel the ice underneath the snow with my crampons for every step and was making sure to put my track in where I could find best snow coverage so I would have something to follow on the way down.
There where a couple of hard cruxes on the way down combined with really steep turns in good chalk snow. I had to do two short rappels over ice bulges and also about fifty meters of sidestepping where the snow was just to hard or to thin. Because of that I wouldn’t say I did a clean decent, but I had a great experience from a good challenge and I’m happy to ski a line like this early in the season.
A short film is on its way and in the meantime check out Bjarne’s blog at endlessflow.posterous.com
The Line (Photo: Bjarne Sahlen)
Me skiing, the little dot in the right hand upper corner (Photo: Bjarne Sahlen)
Looking up the face
View over the Mt Blanc range from the summit
Taking a rest in the fog
