 "The only powder to get high on, falls from the sky." - Dave R |
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No turning back
As planned, the last 2 weeks were fairly easy going with a few comfortable hikes, perhaps at a slightly faster pace. Last night I drove to Champ's place, had a couple of beers and crashed. We left at a reasonable hour to drive to Luton airport, flying out to Geneva just after midday. No traumas on the flight or transfer, and we were in Chamonix at the Chalet McNab by 5pm for afternoon tea.
Our first introductions for the week were Alex and Neil, a pair of climbers / mountaineers from Scotland. Alex had summited Mont Blanc 4 times already, so we listened to what he said. But he also said that he felt like shit each time, so we suddenly lost interest in what he was saying.
Next introductions were Simon and Simon. Sounds like a stage act, and sometimes they seemed like it. Both were surfers and windsurfers, which gave us plenty to chat about. Simon A also runs a video production company, and is out here to film the week. Sounds great as I might get some tips for my humble videos. Simon G is his partner in crime. When asked what he actually does (in general as well as for this week), I'm met by bursts of laughter all round.
Route: Le Brevent
Weather: sunny with clouds, quite warm
Today, Saturday, being a day before the planned week, we went off to Le Brevent, a southerly facing resort above Chamonix town. Things were pretty icy up the top, but only in sheltered North facing sections. Once you were around those bits, things soon started getting mushy. I enjoyed the soft snow, and after a morning of riding, we went looking for some small kickers to have a play on. Nothing too serious. It would suck to have all this planned, and then break something on day 1!
In the evening we meet the 7th participant of the trip, Jon. Jon's from London and clearly has some experience with mountaineering and is soon pestered for advice by anyone fumbling about with setting their crampons up. The team is complete, now we just need the guides.
Alex Perinet (Fr) and John Morgan (UK) turned up in the evening to introduce themselves. We'll meet the 3rd guide tomorrow.
Route: Le Tour - Au d'Etain - Trien, Switzerland
Weather: cloudy, strong winds, reduced visibility
Altitude: Climb from 2250m to 2735m, down to 1165m
The 3rd guide, Dave Green (UK) arrives in the morning. And makes
introductions. We were also joined by Keith McIntosh, one of the team from
McNab Mountain Sports, Keith does all the videography for the McNab
courses, and was to join us for the week. He too is an excellent
snowboarder, and by the end of the week I was convinced that he was a
cyborg. He did everything we did, plus he was working in the Chalet, and
doing video editing as well. Unreal.
Equipment is checked, harnesses are issued, transceivers on, shovels, probes, poles, crampons, food, water, clothes, ropes, first aid... it all goes into the back packs, and we're off for our first day.
Rain started last night during dinner, and the freezing level apparently dropped to 2000m. By the morning, the snow/rain had stopped, but the winds were so strong that most lifts in the Chamonix valley were shut down. The planned route over the Aiguille Rouge was therefore abandoned.
We went to Le Tour and had a warm up on the pistes. To us, it's a warm up. In reality it's the guides chance to check out how good or bad you are in terms of general riding ability. They never actually said that, but it seems to be a common theme. All the groomers were solid hard pack, with any snow fall being in very very small pockets of nothing more than 1cm deep. Everything else was blown away by the wind.
Alex Perinet was on a board, and seemed to not really care about the icy conditions. He lead the way carving down the slope and generally charging. There was only one thing to do, and that was to follow. Neil McNab and Dave Green went to our destination point to drop off the van, before coming back to Le Tour to meet up with us.
With the whole team assembled, we took the chair lifts up to the starting point, and all strapped on our crampons. We hiked up 500m to the Col, which was reasonably steep in places.
On the other side, Simon and Simon went off first to set up the camera, and try to get some good footage. The snow had a layer of crust about 2-3cm thick. This made it necessary to ride aggressively on the boards, but the 2 guides on skis (John and Dave) had their worst day of the season.
On the second section, I waited at the back to film everyone taking their runs and then brought up the rear. On the lower part it just felt so good, and I tried to power through the turns. The crust was ignored, it was yum. As I rode up to the group, Neil McNab, 4 times British Snowboard Champion was applauding my run. Later Champ told me that McNab said I had a nice style! Who am I to argue. :-)
Dropping further down, the crust ran out and we hit the corn snow,
which was great fun. At this point we split, half went through some
trees with 2 guides and the rest of us dropped down a 35-40o
couloir with Alex, which had lots of corn snow in it, and was a
blast.
After this point, it was a short ride before the snow ran out completely, and we had to hike out the rest, down to Trien and the van.
Not bad for a first day, and even the weather held out for us (although it was pretty flat light for the filming).
Route: La Flegere - Col de la Floria - down glacier - Col de Berard - Combe de Berard - Le Buet
Weather: sunny but hazy, very warm in places
Altitude: Climb from 2410m to 2830m, down to 2085m, up again to 2420m, and down to 1355m
Here we took the first 2 lifts at Flegere, and then immediately put on our crampons for the climb up to the Col de la Floria. The couloir on the other side was apparently 50o and had crusty snow on it. However, it didn't really seem that steep. Still it was good fun.
After a reasonable run, we had to put on the snow shoes for the hike
up the Col de Berard. It was incredibly hot on this hike, and
consequently took some of the team considerably longer to do, but
no-one complained about being in the mountains on a nice day with
incredible views.
The ride down was mixed though with some nice free sections mixed with a very slow grabbing snow that made riding quite interesting. Going down the valley to Le Buet was an undertaking in itself. All of us were using poles to push us along when we ran out of downhill bits, but some places we would have to get off the boards and walk for a small section. This also was interesting, as the snow was soft enough to allow our feet to disappear thigh deep. We crossed rivers, trees, rocks and avalanche debris and finally hiked out across people's back gardens which form the small resort of Le Buet near Vallorcine.
The trek over, a few cold pitchers of beer were acquired and consumed, whilst the van was retrieved from Flegere.
3 years ago I did this run out along the valley at the end of March, and we rode all the way to the village. Apparently 3 weeks ago, we could have done the same thing. It's amazing how much snow has gone in that 3 weeks!
Over the past few evenings the guides have been discussing our potential route up Mont Blanc. It seems that the traditional way via the Cosmiques refuge and over the 3 domes has a massive crevasse across the route. One that would require abseiling down one side, walking across the bottom, and then ice climbing the other side. Some of our group are rock climbers, but no-one except the guides have done ice climbing.
The alternative route is to stay at the Grands Mulets refuge, and set off at about midnight to take the long walk up. Problem with this is that there are huge seracs hanging over the walking route. We would be under them for about 3 hours. Based on my previous avalanche training, seracs were not something that I wanted to be under for 3 minutes, let alone 3 hours.
One final proposal is to drive to Italy, and obtain a helicopter drop onto the North Western side of the summit. We would still be dropped at 3800m, so the amount of vertical hiking would be the same. We would also have to break trail ourselves. And because the pilot would need light to see, it would be a very late summit and descent, with all the risks that that entails.
The group were beginning to favour the heli.
Route: Aiguille Du Midi - Col de Plan - Petite Envere - Valle Blanche - Chamonix (via Telecabine & train) - Aiguille Du Midi again - Refuge des Cosmiques
Weather: sunny & warm, clouding over in afternoon, snowing in the clouds at the refuge hut (5pm)
Altitude: Cable car to 3842m, down to 1700m, back up to 3842m and down to 3613m
Snow was in pretty good condition, with a lot of sun soaked snow
making it easy going. On the Col de Plan we dropped down a section
and negotiated a bergschrund. Whilst looking back up, I saw a skier
fall and slide down the whole slope, about 100m, losing skis and poles
on the way. He headed straight for the crevasse, and did a complete
somersault right over it before coming to rest at the bottom.
Amazingly he got up and brushed himself down, whilst his friends
looked for his gear.
After the steeper sections (40-50o) we came on the glacial section with 100s of other people. However, progress was far from glacial. Despite the sheep effect that creates the moguls, the snow itself was nicely softened up by the strong sun light and warm temperatures. We were able to rip over the moguls and make it past the plethora of tourists, before stopping at a safe spot to enjoy lunch with a view.
Heads up people - the Valle Blanche is a glacier, it has crevasses, it is not a place to take off your skis/board and go wandering about trying to find a spot for lunch!
After a short break, we made the long flat run down to the telecabine, which in itself wasn't too bad, just a little dull. Up the cable car, then back to Chamonix on the train, where we walked to a restaurant for a proper meal, and dried all our stuff in the sun. At 16:30 we caught the cable car back to the top of the Aiguille du Midi. You get some interesting looks on the faces of those coming down the cable car, when they see you coming up, fully loaded with board and packs, at the end of the day.
From the top it's a short traverse across to get to the Refuge des
Cosmiques. Now, personally, my uneducated view of refuge huts is a
wooden shack located in a relatively safe spot, with maybe a window, a
wood burner in the middle of the room, and some floor space to get
some rest. So it was a pleasant suprise to enter the Cosmiques. It has
a nice kitchen area, with reasonable small dormitories in which there
are rows of bunk beds, a separate kit room keeps all the smelly stuff
out of the rooms. It was warm and dry, and outside, in the clouds
that smothered the mountain ridge, it was snowing.
I'm told that the Comsmiques is the exception rather than the rule, so I'll count myself lucky that my first introduction to these huts was a good one. Dinner was a 3 course meal, which was right tasty. But, the cost of sundries was (justifiably) high, after all, it needs to be flown in by a helicopter. EU6.50 for a small coffee and a litre of fizzy water... but it's better than staying dehydrated.
Breakfast is at 5am!
Route: Refuge des Cosmiques - Grand Renyon - Mont Blanc Du Tacul - Point Helbronner - Combe de la Vierge - Valle Blanche - Chamonix
Weather: Sunny with clouds, cold before sunrise
Altitude: 3613m, ride down to 3160m, snowshoe up to 3420m, down to 1700m
Didn't get much sleep, despite the luxuriant accomodation. Being a light sleeper anyway, it was a no-win situation being in a room with 12 other people. Through my ear plugs, I couldn't work out if someone was snoring or farting. It took a long time to come, but 04:30 turned up and the first people were stirring. Good thing about the Guardian of the refuge is that everyone in the room was put in there because they were all breakfasting at 5am!
On the balcony outside the kitchen it was dark and cold. The
thermometer said it was -6C but it felt a lot colder. The moon
provided a soft silver light that allowed me to make out some areas
around us. On the first dome to the South we could see 3 guys
(actually we could only see 3 torches) who had set off at 2am to head
for the summit of Mont Blanc. They should have been a lot further on
by all accounts, and they still had a suprise waiting for them.
Further on, on the 3rd dome, another party were making good progress
indeed, and looked like they would be on the summit shortly after
dawn.
At 05:30 it started to get light, with a whisper of orange, red and purple on the Eastern horizon, silhouetting the mountain range. It was about this time that Keith was outside doing some time lapse videography on the dawning sky, when he heard a huge tearing sound, and massive rumble and crash. A portentous serac had dropped off from somewhere. Guess who favoured the helicopter? Pretty much everyone by this point.
Shortly after 06:00 when it was light enough to see where we were going, we set off. The overnight snow had filled in previous tracks, and made for a nice traverse with a few turns. We then waited at a set point for Simon & Simon to set up the camera further down, whilst we watched the sun poke its head up and tinge the western slopes in rays of red. It was an amazing experience, seeing such a sun rise in the middle of the mountains, with only 12 people to share it with you, whilst the masses were still in bed. It was 3 hours before the first cable car would get up to the top.
The ride towards the camera crew was nice enough, but short lived,
and it was time to get the snowshoes on and hike up to Italy. At
Helbronner we headed North East around the point, and then dropped
back down the Combe de la Vierge. The snow was the best all week, it
was amazing and doesn't get much better than that, unless it's fresh.
Simon filmed everyone as we buzzed passed the camera, with great big
grins on our faces. The best snow so far, and they didn't get to ride
it.
It was still only just after 09:00 before we hit the Valle Blanche proper, and the nice soft moguls from yesterday were now solids lumps of ice joined up by sheet ice. I think just about everyone took a slam or two coming down that section, but of course it was because we were all tired, rather than crap. :) The whole of the VB was empty apart from right at the end when we met up with a couple of skiers. We missed the first train back to Chamonix, so chilled out with a coffee, I wrote my diary and generally enjoyed the views and euphoria. Back in Argentiere the rest of the day was ours to relax, stock up on food stuffs, and generally prepare. Tomorrow, subject to weather, is the big day. And we go by helicopter!
