Well, today has been a bit of a bust. Was supposed to fly to
Denver for the end of my ski season. But CO got so slammed by a huge winter
storm that my flight got canceled while I flew from Nassau to Atlanta. When I landed in ATL, I figured I would get a
flight for tomorrow. Have to spend the night in the airport, but not a big
deal.
So imagine my surprise when I got to the agent to re-book
and they offered me a flight from Saturday morning. Ummm, today is Wednesday. I was supposed to fly back to Nassau on a
redeye Sunday night. So that wasn’t
going to work. Now I am just heading
back home, a bit poorer but looking forward to a long weekend with my lovely
wife and precious Elle. That is a
wonderful consolation prize to travel plans gone very, very sideways.
Of course it is disappointing to have my very much-anticipated
plans waylaid. All that snow was
going to be so fun to ski, but those turns will be for someone else. So be
it. I figured it would be good to take
some solace from a peak
experience a few weeks ago in Chamonix.
Revel in the memory of what has thankfully happened and not get
depressed about the loss of an imagined
future.
Chamonix - off piste
3/8/2016
Have wanted to venture to this famed center of extreme
skiing for years and years. The interest
and curiosity began from hearing about the glaciers, the cliffs and the steeps and from ardently watching ski videos. The association with the extremes of Chamonix valley was frankly a bit daunting, as so many of the skiers in those ski videos ended up dying in the valley.
It is an intimidating place.
To be able to access it more fully, I hired a very capable
guide. This was costly, but oh so worth
it. Am eternally grateful to Mu for
letting me indulge on this luxury. I
planned for the guide the 2nd day after we arrived, so as to not be
affected by jet lag or the travel generally.
I did a bunch of research and went with a company called Adventure Base
out of the UK, which connected me with the very knowledgeable Federico. He grew up in Bariloche in the lakes district
of the Argentina, a place that I love and think about very fondly. So that was a
great start.
Federico picked me up right at 8 am and we drove up to the
Grands Monetets complex to start our day.
We got on the first chair "teleferique" to the mid station and then on the first
Grands Monetets gondola up to about 3,300 meters from the valley floor of 1,000
meters. We both had on the backcountry
gear of beacon, probe and shovel, as well as climbing harnesses to aid rescue
out of crevices. Let’s try to avoid
using those tools. But they give a sense
of what kind of terrain we were covering for the day.
Our first run was straight down the main glacier, and I
followed somewhat carefully in Federico’s path.
It was quite cold and we had fresh tracks from the 20 cms of snow that
fell over night. It was sublime, a bit
firm for the snow but it was cold and that can lock in the snow a bit. Going to be a good day!
Next we went up a secondary gondola and were soon in a huge
bowl with literally zero tracks. First
tracks for thousands of feet descending down the fresh snow with the whole
valley opening up below. Wow. Really, really special. With the danger of crevices removed on this
bowl, I was able to get more expansive on my turns and turn up the speed and aggression. Really lovely skiing and here we are an hour
into the day and already skied like 8k vertical feet of entirely fresh turns in
these huge bowls. Nice!
With our legs under us, it was time to get into the routes that have made Cham so famous. We took the gondola back to the top of Grands Monetets, these rides go disarmingly fast as you ascending something like 4,000 vertical feet in a handful of minutes. From mellow to full on.
Argentiere glacier
Our first route that felt decidedly different from any
skiing I have done in North America came down the Argentiere glacier. Once at the top of the gondola, we skied
through a saddle and into this massive valley.
The glacier rippled below us and to our right, with crazy steep peaks
ringing the entire valley. The sun was
starting to make its presence felt and the snow was softening a bit and feeling
great under the sticks.
The glacier had an omnipresent gravity to our left, and
there were a few big drops to the right so you had to be careful about your turns. It was a bit of contrast to skiing in the steeps
out west in the U.S. because I felt like I needed to be in more control and
looking farther ahead than usual. That
is partly why I was so glad to have the guide.
I had some great turns down the main slope and then we
swooped to the left. I had a visual
reminder of the returning route from the lake chutes at Breckenridge, which was interesting.
This happened a few times during the week in Chamonix, with terrain harkening to Breck, Heavenly
and Jackson. The seriousness of the
terrain was mentally increased with a helicopter engaged in a rescue operation
on the glacier face below us. The arresting thump thump
of the heli definitely increased my focus. The
bottom led us back to the same gondola, and I asked Federico about what happens
if you ski below the cut back and don't hit the track.
“Oh that is cliffed out. It is good for ice climbing.”
My mental response – “Well then, let’s make sure to hit the
track back then. I don’t know how to ice climb.”
Pas de Chevre
After our last ride up Grands Monetets, we started on my favorite
route of the day. This route descends
from the top of the gondola down to the town.
That is a full 2,300 meters of skiing.
The skiing was amazing, deep snow and fresh tracks throughout a massive
gully. I especially enjoyed skiing under
the Aiguille du Dru, which for my money was the most visually impressive peak
in the entire valley with a steep sustained face rising up to an impossibly
narrow peak.
After the excellent, sustained skiing on the top of the
route, the bottom was very technical. My
skiing buddies know that is exactly what I like, for some reason I enjoy skiing
terrain that is steep and demanding more than any other. This fit the bill. At one point we used a
rope to get over a little rough patch, which was a first. Ultimately, we got to the bottom of the face
and arrived on the Mer de Glace. Then we
picked our way thought some serious crevasses and then clicked out of our skis
for a 15 minute hike up to the ridge that allows access to Cham.
Aiguille du Midi
 |
| Mount Blanc |
Before I got to click into my skis, Federico and I had to
get from the top of the gondola down to the entry point to the valley. This was MUCH harder than I had anticipated. The path down was hard packed snow and very
slippery with a deadly drop on the other side of some ropes. Sort of like the last part of the hike up
Half Dome. I was scared. I felt a bit
out of control, not what I am used to in my ski boots where I feel so
comfy. Thankfully Federico had me backed
up and on belay, he had crampons for dramatically better traction. There was one moment when I slipped and took
out his feet, but thankfully he arrested us and after a few more minutes we got
to the stability of the shoulder to start the skiing. It is weird that skiing in the dangerous
glacier felt exponentially safer than walking off the top of the Midi.
We skied down the face, getting nice turns and fresh tracks
most of the way. At one point, I was
skiing back up to the guide and Federico yelled out, “No, not that way!” I was about to ski down this little dip and
up to him. But that little dip was a
crevice. Whoops. So I picked my way a different route and was
reminded of the seriousness of the terrain.
We ripped down the big face and then stopped for another coffee and some
apple crumble before connecting to the Mer de Glace and Chamonix.
What a day. Skiing
literally miles of vertical terrain and routes I would never have attempted
solo. Great snow. Deep snow.
When I talked back into our rented apartment, Mu was relived as the skiing
is serious. I was beat.
goosebumps
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