Great Powder
Our main goal for this spring trip was to do some high glacier hiking and trying to summit Mont Blanc and Mont Maudit. The pre-trip weather forecast promised unsettled weather and possibly heavy rain, or snow, so we were not that convinced for possibility of higher peaks.
Our suspicion was confirmed when we arrived to Chamonix at Friday afternoon. Big snowflakes came heavily down and the whole village looked like it was mid January. It continued to snow pretty much the whole week and there was more than two meters of fresh snow up in the high peaks. It was also very cold higher up, so the summiting thoughts had to be postponed.
Day 1 Saturday 22.3. Grands Montets Bochard / Lavancher.
The clouds gave away and beautiful sunny day shone to snow covered landscape. We rushed to the nearest ticket office in Brevent just to find out that we certainly were not the only ones to head up to powdery slopes. I’ve never seen so many people to queue to the Brevent condola. Add to that all lifts were closed until the afternoon to give the piste control time to blast possible avalanches from above.
In the afternoon we took a buss ride to Grands Montets hoping to get few runs to get the feel for the skis again. We took Bochard condola and were positively surprised that there actually were not that many tracks going to uncroomed Chamois bowl. That vast bowl in the most western part of GM is one of the best places to be after every snowfall, but you have to be quick since it is very rapidly skied through. We were lucky to have four runs of light, deep powder between 100-140 cm. With a BIG smile we concluded the day by skiing the Lavancher. A little bit combat skiing, but well worth it and a cold beer at the Chambre Neuf was also well earned.
Day 2 Sunday 23.3. Flegere and Brevent colour.
It had snowed the whole night and the day was grey and still snowing. We went up to Flegere and took the Index lift. The visibility was poor and we skied only few runs of powder by ‘gut feeling’ since the contrast was completely zero. We then changed the area to Brevent side and skied down one of the steep forest colours which take you back to village. Once again very nice snow and the contrast in the woods was much better.
In the evening we enjoyed an excellent meal at this little cosy restaurant by Rue des Moulins called Le Chaudron.
Day 3. Monday 24.3. Midi Col du Plan and ice climbing.
Clear morning and we couldn’t resist the temptation to go to the Aiguille du Midi to admire the glacier and perhaps scout possible routes to Blanc or Maudit. As soon as we arrived to the top, one could tell that there was noticeable amount of fresh snow up on the wide northern wall of Blanc, Maudit and Tacul without a single track going up. That confirmed our prediction that it wasn’t time to try to push for the summits.
After basic preparation at the cafeteria, chocolate chaud and harnesses on, we continued down the crest of the Midi towards the start of Col du Plan route. In between the seracs we skied down and once again had a tremendous pleasure of deep powder skiing. We stopped for an hour or so at the corner of Mer de Glace to do some ice climbing in the serac zone.
Day 4. Tuesday 25.3. Midi skinning to south side of Mont Blanc.
Back up again to that glaciated paradise to do first bit of skinning. Basic route down the Valle Blanche underneath the Hellbronner condola to the start of legendary climb of one of the toughest routes in the Mont Blanc range, the east face of the Grand Capucin (first climbed by the great Italian climber Walter Bonatti 1951). After admiring that magnificent pinnacle, we put on the skins and started to ski upwards in the maze of crevasses to the upper part of the Geant Glassier. We stopped for a picnic at the height of 3500m and had an incredible view to this giant amphitheatre formed by Arete de la Brenva and peaks of Mont Maudit and Mont Blanc du Tacul. Being moved by this stupendous scenery, we started to decent down the glassier on skis getting mesmerised from the sparkle of billions of diamonds glittering on the surface of a virgin snow.
Day 5. Wednesday 26.3. Flegere, Index and Lachenal.
Dumping snow…still. Poor visibility and we ended up waiting half an hour in one spot outside the piste called Floria just to find a safe way down. But still skiing in a deep snow all day and had some really great runs in Combe Lachenal and we concluded the day by skiing down one of the avalanche chutes to Flegere. Apres at C9 again and in the evening some jazz and great beer in the MBC (Micro Brewery of Chamonix).
Day 6. Thursday 27.3. Grands Montets with skinning to Col du Passon.
The weather looked like 50-50. It seemed that it could clear up towards the afternoon. We queued up to the top of GM at 3300m, where we spent some half an hour watching rather ominous looking huge cumulus clouds. The weather was also getting warmer as the sun shone through rapidly passing clouds.
We decided to try to reach Col du Passon anyway since there was quite good track going up. Therefore there would be good reference and guideline if the visibility should diminish too much.
The start from the GM down to Glassier d’Argentiere along the Rognon glassier was once again superb skiing in near waist-deep powder.
As we grossed the Argentier glassier the sun was blazing from the sky between the clouds and radiating back up from the snow. That made the skiing across the glassier feel really tiring and face felt like burning (it probably was). After that relatively flat section we put on the skins and started to climb up towards the col. The elevation to be gained is about 750 hm and half way up the clouds covered the sky completely and it started to snow. We waited underneath the final very steep and narrow section for about half an hour for visibility to return, but it did not. We decided to push for the col anyway and hope that the weather would improve a little. The final climb was actually very enjoyable steep crusty snow between high mountain walls in a narrow canyon.
We reached the top of col at 3030m and unfortunately there was complete whiteout waiting for us.
That meant that the planned decent to the village of Le Tour via glassier route was out of the question and we had to make a return trip to Argentiere. So skis on and tricky slide through the steep and narrow colour we’ve just climbed and then trying to make turns in a rotten snow following our climbing tracks.
All and all good sporty day and satisfactory climb to the col…..so couple in C9 was earned.
Day 7. Friday 28.3. Midi to Hellbronner to Courmayer terasse.
A glorious day, as it seemed when we started. Same start as the day nr. 4, but we now skinned up to the Hellbronner condola on the Italian side. Rather easy, obvious treck on skis and we thought that it would be nice to go and see, how the snow was on the southern side of the range.
I made a little hassle with my ropes coming down underneath the steely staircase and had to climb back up a little sort out my line…idiot…me. Well the skiing down was…well…awful struggle in a sun soften, frozen again, icy clobs, wet snow with hard crust cover. So, we were more than happy to finally reach the mid station in Coumayer Terasse. We took three cable cars to get back up to the Hellbronner again. We received a bit odd, but quite nice support from a group of Japanese tourists at the top as they gave us thumbs up signs and slaps on the back. Reason for that was quite likely the fact that the weather had turned bad on the Valle Blanche and we were heading there with our skis. Despite the bad visibility we enjoyed really nice decent in a powder (the snow was so much better on the north side of mountain. Even the route is very familiar we skied downwards attentively in poor contrast to watch out for the crevasses.
All and all great day in the mountains again.
Day 8. 29.3. Midi, Col du Plan.
The last day on this trip. We made a tribute to one of my favourite scenery in the world and skied the Endvers du Plan from the east side of Gros Rognon. Surprise, surprise, there was still some places to find powder ski. When we stopped at the Refuge de Requin for some lunch, we calculated that we’ve enjoyed eight consecutive days of powder ski. Not that bad for a substitute for summiting the four-thousanders.
Until we meet again!
