Helmet cam speed riding

The music got cut off, I will try to get it uploaded with tunes at some point, but right now I am in Switzerland and too busy skiing to take care of it...

More Speed Flying...

Great day!  Sunny weather, decent skiing.  It is more hardpack than I have seen here yet, but still great to cruise around in the sun.  Alan and I went out and had a pleasant late start, apres-ski action and still managed to have some fun.  The winds were up pretty good, so I ended up flying mainly on the lower mountain.  Speed flying is amazingly fun.  The skiing has been so great in the last couple weeks that I haven't broken out the wing, but each time I do I realize the true freedom involved with flying.  Can't wait to fly in AK this season!

 

San Christophe x2

So I meant to post about the San Christophe tour about a week ago, but as with so many other things, the skiing was good and I never got around to it.  So now that I am writing about it, I have actually gone and done it a second time...

Sophie skiing her "Best day ever"

The tour begins by riding the lifts up through La Grave, including the drag lift.  Just for the record, the drag lift only began running, and the first time I did this tour, we skinned up.  Then you ski off of the backside of La Grave and down into the San Christophe Valley and to the town of San Christophe.  The scenery and skiing is really top notch.  South facing, so it is in the sun, and just fun.  The ski out is a nice mellow trip down the valley, with some amazing views along the way.  

Looking down to the San Christophe Valley

The highlight of the trip might even be the food at Marie Claude's.  After skiing down into San Christophe you stop and eat lunch in town before catching the shuttle to Les Duex Alpes and heading home.  I have to say, some of the best food I had on my trip was at Marie Claude's after a stellar ski to San Christophe.

At long last!

So here it is.  This video has been epic for me to get up on the blog.  Between Blogspot, Youtube, and my inability to figure it out it has taken several days.  But not it is up, so I hope you enjoy.  This was a stellar day.  Deep, and great, and we got to open each run.  

Each of these runs was special.  For me they really made up some of the best things about La Grave.  Great skiing with amazing people in unreal snow.  These road runs here go for around 2500 meters.  For those of you who think in Imperial terms, that is around 8,000 feet.  Then you hitch back up to La Grave and ski another.  These are massive laps, and getting to open (first turns down) them makes it even better.  This season has been touted as one of the best seasons in the Alps for 40 years.  I am sure this depends on where you are at, and whether or not it is the best in however-many-years, I am certainly happy with it.  

One other note about this day.  We got to ski the Polichinelle in fantastic conditions.  This is the run that one of my heroes, and the hero of many, passed away skiing several seasons ago.  It was certainly a reflective experience being in there, a steep narrow couloir that slyly links into several other couloirs snaking the way down the hill, knowing the history of the place.  Doug Coombs was an inspiration to many.  Being up in Alaska skiing, and now here in La Grave, I have had the opportunity to talk to so many people that he was able to touch.  He lived an amazing life, and I wish that I could have met him.  

T-Bar Heaven (From early Feb.)

The storm looked like it was going to hit hard a bit east of us, so we piled in the car and headed out to the Queyras.  This is a small area close to the Italian border.  For those of you who didn't know parts of Italy have broken records for snow-fall this year.  Just meters and meters of base with deep snow continuing to fall.  The plan was to ski these amazing little hills with great trees and powder while the storm was on, then head back to La Grave in time to see the top open.  

We skied at Abries for a day to begin with.  Luckily for me, Kurt had spent a week here earlier in the season and had dialed in many of the runs to hit.  The most amazing thing about the place is that nobody seems to ski off-piste there.  For the entire day we were the only ones skiing epic runs off of the north side of the resort right down to the road.  They even had a shuttle bus at the base of the road to take you back to the lift.  Honestly, when I say we were the only two skiing these slopes, it is the actual truth.  Not one other person back there.  The terrain was all time as well.  Steep, tree skiing in over-the-head powder.  Lot's of steep little mini-golf style terrain.  It was fun to ski something totally different than the alpine style skiing in La Grave.

We skied Abries again in the morning the following day, and moved over to San Veron in the afternoon.  They had a very similar north aspect that you could drop off of and head out a valley to get back to town.  The most interesting part was the very upper north face pitches.  They all dropped off into the amazing couloirs.  Unfortunately we skipped them due to lack of visibility, but I think they deserve a trip back for sure.

One of my favorite parts of the whole trip, was how many t-bars there were.  T-bars that went on for miles.  It was one t-bar to another, for well over 20 minutes and over a thousand meters.  Reminded me of riding the t-bar down in White Pass when I was a kid.  We got word that the telepherique looked like it was going to open the following day, so we headed back home and with perfect timing, had another amazing day at La Grave...

Epic Touring

It has been so good over the last few days.  Specifically the last four days have been unreal.  Chasing storms and skiing some of the best conditions possible wherever we went.  In fact it has been so busy that I am only now getting the video footage put together in any viewable manner from a tour that was on the 31st of January.  

This tour was up to the Twois Eveches just up the valley behind our house in Les Hieres.  Kurt, Alan and I headed up to the Col du Lautaret to start the day.  We skinned up the backside of the Twois Eveche from the Col.  The day was amazing, sun was shining, just a slight breeze to keep us cool.  Really could not have asked for better conditions.  It was a little under four hours for us to get up to the top.  It is amazing watching all the tracks and other randonee skiers around the Col who are just skiing up and down.  Specifically on the south side runs that just aren't skiing as well snow wise or adventure wise.  

We convened at the top of the ridge and switched to downhill mode.  We are all using the Marker Duke bindings, and I have been really happy with how they ski.  The fact that I left my Dynafits back in the States might help the Duke's cause on the weight issue uphill.  One problem we all found was that they can be hard to switch from ski to tour and vice-versa when they are frozen.  Either way, it didn't slow us down much.  

The entrance into the couloir was steep and firm, but once we got into it the skiing was great.  Not quite pow skiing, but good gripping hard-pack skiing.  The run was around 1600 meters or so, plus the ski out the valley through the little summer villages and right back to our doorstep.  All in all, and incredibly aesthetic line.

Another Brilliant start to a day...

I got back home last night from a great trip out to the Qeuras for a few days.  We ran into splitter weather and deep powder.  In these little areas where we were literally the only one skiing off-piste.  But we came home to La Grave last night with the hope that Meteo France would not lead us wrong and we would see a blue day here and the telepherique open to the top.  As I look out my window and sip my coffee this morning it looks like that may come true.  La Meije is covered in a thin veil of clouds, but they seem to be dissipating as the sun comes up.  I really think that seeing the sun come up, and the view across the valley are worthy reasons to live up in one of these villages on the hill.