Saturday 27 April 2013

Lochnagar Skiing

Skiing on Lochnagar today - hopefully the conditions beta might be helpful to someone:

Lochnagar from the col



So Glenshee shut for the season last week - but there's still plenty of cracking skiing in Scotland for those who are willing to earn their descents, and conditions are only going to get better over the next few weeks.

Walking up the 'ladder' from the col - looks almost alpine


View from the summit plateau
I'm back in Braemar for the weekend and could see from the road that Lochnagar is still holding a lot of snow so I had planned to get out on Saturday to see if I could find some good skiing.  The weather had changed on friday, with a return to 'wintery' rather than last weeks 'spring-like' temperatures which wasn't ideal as I was hoping the milder weather would mean soft snow.  Anyway, I awoke on saturday morning to a dusting of snow on the lawn and a light northerly breeze and thought that Lochnagar was definitely worth a shot.  

I haven't skiied a huge amount on Lochnagar but I think that if you are willing to take on the walk-in there is a huge range of terrain available.  It is high (1150m), holds snow well, and has big open faces as well as tight gullies.  More importantly - although the coire faces NE - the actual aspects of potential descents vary from North-West facing (on the Sentinel Sector) right through South-West facing for some sections of the main crag (for example the main branch of Black Spout).  This means it should always be possible to find good snow somewhere - it's a shame I don't seem to have the experience to take full advantage of this yet!

Lochnagar summit cairn

The had been a reasonable amount of snowfall the previous night and, as it arrived with strong Northerlys, was drifted deep in sheltered locations - I met a woman from the SAIS team who reported windslab on south-facing aspects near the top of Black Spout.  I reached the summit and had a look into the two branches of the Black Spout.  The left (steeper) branch had a steep entry but no windslab, whilst the right branch had an easier entry but lots of fresh slab on the (skiers) left of the entry.  The narrows on the right branch look reasonably well covered at the moment and I suspect would be fairly easy to negotiate on skis.  

Entry to Black Spout LH - although the cornice is small it was steep directly below


Entry to Black Spout RH - fresh windslab on the right of the picture
Me!


I decided to drop into the left branch so geared up and stepped down to the cornice.  Whilst the cornice was small, there was a very steep section immediately under it before it rolled back to a more reasonably angle (40 degrees?) maybe 100 feet lower down.  Some walkers had appeared on the edge and were filming my entry on their phones - no pressure then!  I committed to the drop onto what I was hoping to be soft-ish older snow to be hit by the roar of edges on hard ice, and the horrible juddering of the skis trying to get some purchase.  Instinctively I eased the pressure off the edges and managed to control my speed, before putting in a couple more very careful turns to reach the lower section at a more normal angle.  The rest of the skiing down to the junction was the same - very hard, icy snow with little respite.  Below the chockstone (there is so much cover that this is a mere steepening in the angle) I was able to ski fresh snow patches on the (skiers) left bank which was more pleasant although it wasn't particularly well adhered to the hardpack underneath.  Once back in the coire, the fresh snow was heavy, but the old snow was now slushy, giving a much nicer pitch down to the rescue box.

Looking back towards Black Spout





















The bottom of Douglas-Gibson gully well banked out
After a quick break I began the walk back up to the col at Meikle Pap, spying a gully just next to Sentinel Buttress en route, which had good cover and was only a short walk back up the tourist path.  I decided that I may as well get another run out of the day and a short hike got me back up to the rim of the coire above the gully - which I figured couldn't have worse snow that what I'd just skiied.  I dropped in with no cornice issues and got a few steep turns in above a cluster of rocks - the snow was hard but not as hard as that in Black Spout, as the face was lower and had seen a bit more sun. I quite enjoy forcing myself to turn on steep ground with hard snow - as if you can deal with committing situations and icy snow then everything feels easy when it's in good condition.  Below the rocks the snow quickly softened up; I'm not quite sure how or why but it gave some fantastic fast skiing back down to the bootpack.

Good snow in a gully near Sentinel Buttress, Southern Sector


From there I headed back to the car, climbing up to the Meikle Pap col, and then skiing most of the way down to the track junction.  The cover is patchy in places though, and I suspect a lot of the new snow will disappear quickly over the next few days.  The walk back to the car felt short and almost enjoyable - I must be fit at the moment!


Lochnagar from Loch Muick


In summary - both branches of Black Spout have great cover for this time of year.  Once the temperature rises and the snow softens to spring 'hero' slush the skiing will be great. I skiied the left branch of Black Spout in such conditions in May 2010 and it was fantastic fun.  There are also plenty of lines with good cover in the Southern Sector from the col right round to Central Buttress.  If anyone is interested Douglas-Gibson gully looked easily ski-able from below the kink, and Raeburn's Gully had a lot of snow in the bottom (although I couldn't see the ice pitch).  I haven't heard of either of these two being skiied but I suspect these are the kind of conditions one would need.  I noticed on the drive home that there is lot of snow on Beinn a'Bhuird also, with all of the gullys in the main coires looking complete.

Finally some words of advice from a friend of mine: remember that things are always in condition - it just depends on your interpretation of 'condition'.

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Chamonix Part III


Friday

With the weather forecast not being great for the day I wasn't particularly optimistic, but I headed up to Grands Montets anyway to see what things looked like.  The lifts were quieter than I was expecting so I jumped on the bin up to the top station and walked right up to the top viewing station to have a look at the ski patrollers run.  There were footprints heading down the wire, so I jumped over the fence and scrambled down the ridge to get a few good turns in before joining the piste lower down which was choppy back to the mid station.  For those that have never done it, it's a worthwhile but short run which often still has good snow when most other places are tracked out, or if the snow is heavy lower down.  From the top viewing platform at the GM station jump over the fence and follow a wire down to a ladder, which leads over some rocks to a short slope which bears right down to join the black piste just before it branches.

Looking down from the Petit Aiguille Verte towards the top station at Grands Montets


I soon found myself back at the top, looking at the North Face of the Petit Aiguille Verte - there was a team skinning up towards the ridge, so I decided to have a skin up to see what the snow was like.  I'd neglected to bring crampons and an axe but was just planning on skinning up the easy angled lower slopes to get a few fresh turns in.  Predictably, I soon found myself climbing up the North ridge of the Petit Aiguille Verte, ski boots balanced on some small rock edges and my gloves failing to gain any purchase on the hard neve above.   Needless to say I managed to reach the easier ground just below the summit but it had reminded me how useful the proper equipment can be.  I had caught the team ahead of me, so was the first to drop onto the North Face - I was surprised to be putting fresh tracks down steep cold powder which was as good as anything I'd found all week.  Some fantastic fast turns got be back to the cable car station and I was happy to spend the rest of the day skiing the natural forest features off the Tabe chair, and charging some deserted pistes as the day wore on.  All in all a great days skiing.


Saturday - GM 50th Birthday

My last day.  The forecast was poor again but it was the 50th anniversary of the opening of Grands Montets.  This meant that a lift pass was half price and, more importantly, there was a party at Lognan.   George and I decided that a day of boozy piste skiing was in order - how wrong we were...

After a brief altercation with a policeman about the suitability of George's chosen parking spot in the car park, we made it up to Lognan to find the visibility was actually pretty good (George had to move the van, in case you were wondering).  A couple of quick laps of the Tabe chair got the legs working, then George dragged me through the park, refusing to let me go home until I'd thrown myself off one of the red jumps.  The park dispatched, we found ourselves at the top of the Bochard, looking down into the Poubelle Couloir which drops down onto the Pas de Chevre, and then the Mer de Glace.  I don't think either of us particularly wanted to ski it but we both refused to admit as much to the other, so we found ourselves making the short abseil into the top of it.  Admiring crowds gathered at the top to give it the true 'hero' feel.


George enjoying the Poubelle
Dropping in below the crowds!


I've skiied the Poubelle once before, in deep powder getting fresh tracks all the way down to Montenvers (as the top station had been shut for days) so this descent didn't quite compare although the snow at the top was pretty good considering.  It was quite nice to feel totally comfortable on steep terrain in mixed snow, but the quality worsened as we got lower however and the bottom of the Pas de Chevre was frozen crust and not much fun.  I managed to find the abseil on the descent, and the exit gullies onto the glacier were
just still ski-able - although there was constant rockfall down the chutes to keep us on our toes.

Looking up at the Drus from the Pas de Chevre exit - the poor weather forecast was wrong again!
Short abseil on the exit back onto the Mer de Glace - exit couloir just below


The James Bond track deposited us back in Chamonix (via a bit of walking low down) so we jumped on the bus back up to GM for a pint.  We made it back to Lognan, but somehow found ourselves at the top of the Chapeau Couloir which drops off the West edge of the Bochard ridge back down to Lavancher.  Once again, neither of us particularly wanted to ski it, but we'd never admit it so we found ourselves putting wide, fast turns down the couloir in forgiving soft snow.  As before, the snow quality deteriorated low down and we ended up working hard in very heavy snow and avalanche debris.  Now, I've also skiied the Chapeau before, and I managed to miss the leftwards exit above the ice cliffs at the bottom of it.  On that particular occasion myself and my partner Paddy ended up performing multiple abseils down the cliff on a single 30m glacier rope - it wasn't really long enough and it was a minor epic.  Determined not to make the same mistake twice (as that would be rather stupid) I kept a careful eye out for the exit on the left bank.  Predictably we rapidly found ourselves at the top of the cliff having missed the exit - only this time we only had a 20m rope with us... skis off and rope out then...
Abseil 1 was easy - about 8m to a sapling on the lip of the cliff proper
Abseil 2 was less easy - an 8m overhanging wall led to a tiny ledge, which we had to traverse for about 5m, pulling round a large detached icicle.  From here you had to abseil off the ends of the ropes and jump into a fir tree below.  I had sensibly sent George down first, so when I arrived at the jump he clipped me into the tree via a sling made from my belt
Abseil 3 was another 8m to the last tree before a big drop
Abseil 4 was another diagonal abseil on grassy ledges, before you had to pull the ropes and climb down a thorn bush before jumping into a snow drift at the bottom.

Back on (more) level ground and feeling quite pleased with ourselves for not dying we skiied/walked the cat track back to Lavancher and hitched back up to GM, just catching the last bin up to the party.  We celebrated our lazy piste day with a couple of pitchers before I had to head back to George's to pack my stuff.  A transfer to GVA and an uncomfortable night sleeping on the floor awaited me before my flight back the next day.
 

George at the top of the Chapeau Couloir

Chapeau hi-jinx - George, having abseiled off the end of the rope, about to leap to safety in the tree...













Tuesday 9 April 2013

Chamonix Part II

Tuesday - ENSA Couloir
 After a bit of a lie in following the previous days exertions I awoke to reasonable weather so decided to head up to Brevent  with the idea of skiing the ENSA couloir before the day warmed up too much.  The ENSA is a couloir that I've always wanted to ski and the guidebook suggests that despite being on the wrong side of the valley, it often holds good snow due to its tall walls and shady nature.  This might be the case in February but not, as I found out, at the start of April 3 days after the last snow!

George had decided to do some work today so I took the cable car up to Brevent on my own.  It was warm so, rather than waste time with some warm up skiing, I ducked under the ropes and headed down towards the entry.  To cut a long story short the snow was horrendous but hey, I kind of suspected as much and it's all good training and another line I could tick off in the book.  
Looking down the ENSA Couloir

It was just possible to ski right back to the road at Brevent from where I got the bus up to Grands Montets looking for something a bit colder to ski.

Brevent from the road - too late in the season really!


With nothing better to do with the afternoon, and wondering what the big north faces were looking like in the Argentiere basin I decided to skin up to the NE slope on the Courtes for a closer look.  The high traverse was in to get under the Verte, so I spent the next couple of hours baking in the sun skinning up to the Courtes - fortunately the skin track was already in which boded well for the skiing conditions.  As I reached the bergshrund a team of skiers were descending the bottom of the face - asking what the conditions were like was a redundant question when I saw the expressions on their faces - it was most definitely 'in'.



Wednesday - Courtes NE Slope
George put up significantly less resistance than I was expecting when I informed him what we were doing today.  First bin at Grands Montets and we were joined by Jake who was also psyched for some steeps action - unfortunately there were also several other skiers who had heard about the good conditions.  We skinned up to the bergshrund and there were probably about 8 skiers in total all aiming for the same objective.  There were two climbers already well up the face.

On the skin up to the Courtes


George under the bergshrund


We crossed the bergshrund fairly easily on skis and began to bootpack up the slope - it was very warm.  I was about a third of the way up, maybe 100m above George and Jake when I looked up to see a huge white cloud rapidly approaching down the centre of the couloir.  Entering survival mode I started running sideways as fast as I could, gaining shelter under a small rock as a huge sluff avalanche piled down the couloir - easily big enough to take out any climbers that were caught in it.  Fortunately George and Jake had not made it into the centre of the couloir and were oblivious to the whole thing.  With more sluff coming down from the skiers above and spontaneous slides happening on the adjacent walls we decided to bail - returning on a colder day or with an earlier start.  Freeride World Tour champ Drew Tabke and UKC celebrity Tom Grant made the same decision so I suspect it was the right one.

The skiing on the bottom of the slope, and below the bergshrund was fantastic - it was just a shame we couldn't have gone from the top.  Back in the carpark Jake and I decided we were keen for a rematch tomorrow as the weather forecast was the same as todays.  We got kitted up and caught the last bin up before skinning over to the Argentiere hut - getting a fantastic meal and then some sleep before an early start.

Looking up the NE slope on the Courtes

Looking down to George and Jake just after the first sluffs - fortunately we were all out of their path.


Thursday - Courtes NE Slope (again)
We left the hut at 6am and skinned over under a perfect cloudless sky towards the Courtes.  The snow was still well frozen which made the bergshrund a bit trickier than the previous day but we made it over and had began to bootpack up the couloir when the weather changed.  We had quickly gone from blue skies, and sun hitting the top of the slope, to dark grey clouds piling over the Triolet and Mont Dolent at the end of the basin.  It quickly became apparent that we weren't going to get any sun that day and the snow would remain frozen, furthermore the visibility would be awful.  Frustrated, we bailed once more, skiing down the glacier in horrible flat light, wondering whether we should have just pressed on the previous day.  With worse weather forecast for the next few days I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to wait to ski this incredible slope that has been at the top of my hit-list since I first descended it on foot after the Swiss Route in 2010.


The moon just dipping behind the Triolet on the way over to the Courtes

Jake back on the glacier, bad weather rolling in behind
That afternoon George and I decided to go sport climbing at a crag above Sallanches.  The ensuing complete failure to find the crag, and associated comedy proved that sometimes not going sport climbing can be far more dangerous than alpine climbing.  I'm awaiting a video montage of our rather epic fail that afternoon as it's well worth a watch...
Not sport climbing...










Monday 8 April 2013

Chamonix Part I

I've just returned from an eventful 9-day trip to Chamonix during my Easter holidays.  Although the weather wasn't brilliant, and the weather forecasts were even worse I managed to shoehorn plenty of skiing into the trip and tick several lines that have been on my to-do list for a few years.

Friday
I flew out to Chamonix on Good Friday, arriving in the valley mid-afternoon.  I was staying with my friend and once-housemate George who has moved out to Chamonix from Sheffield.  Living in a nice apartment near Les Houches he maintains that his internet business has funded his alpine lifestyle although I remain to be convinced.  Anyway, with rubbish weather forecast for saturday we head into town for a quiet pint before dinner.

Saturday
I wake up around lunchtime, hungover, but thankfully not as hungover as George.  The weather, fortunately, is as crap as the forecast suggested so a McDonalds breakfast and an afternoon session at the indoor bouldering wall are the order of the day.


Sunday - Vallee Blanche
Feeling like I should probably actually do something with my holiday George and I head up to Brevent to do some resort skiing.  The weather wasn't great, but it was forecast to brighten up in the afternoon and, following 3 days of rain at valley level we knew there would be a lot of fresh high up if it did clear.  Having done a few laps of the Cornu chair the sky started to brighten.  We packed up and headed over to the Midi and jumped straight onto a deserted bin up to the top station.  As we emerged onto the snow arete we were greeted with blue skies, a huge amount of fresh snow and only a handful of tracks heading down the Vallee Blanche variants.

Me on the snow arete, Grands Jorasses behind


We decided to ski the some version of the Envers Vallee Blanche (I've never quite figured out the differences between the Envers-Plan and the Petit Envers) which was fantastic.  Waist deep snow which was genuinely difficult to move in unless you were partly in the tracks.  Thankful that we hadn't had to put the first tracks in we dropped down towards the Requin hut with much whooping and, for George, a bit of near drowning.  Very heavy but deep snow near the bottom made it tough but the Salle a Manger and bottom section was well tracked leaving an easy ski down past Montenvers.  We hiked up to the hut and skiied a slushy but fun James Bond track back to chamonix which was complete save for a 200m hike past the train crossing before Planards.

Too much snow!
George enjoying deeeeep snow on the Envers Vallee Blanche


Monday - Cosmiques Couloir
With good weather forecast, the original plan had been for George and I to meet up with Will (see his blog here) and go climbing - Pinocchio on the East face of Tacul was one idea - but after seeing the amount of snow up high there was a unanimous decision to go skiing instead.  I had seen tracks heading into the Glacier Rond on the Midi NW face on Sunday and the Rond's neighbour, the Cosmiques Couloir, was one which I'd not skiied.  George, Will and another of George's friends, Sion, were all cautiously interested in skiing the Cosmiques which has relatively steep skiing (about 45 degrees at the top) in an exposed positionIt is however very easy to access from the Midi via a short abseil and one of the most popular 'steep' lines in the valley.  Monday was clearly going to be a bluebird day but the chaos that is early morning at the Midi Station didn't materialise and the four of us walked onto the first bin.  Both the Cosmiques and the Glacier Rond are accessed in about 10 minutes by skiing rightwards under the South Tower of the Midi, and then a short bootpack or sidestep up to the col between the Cosmiques Hut and the Abri Simond.

Looking down the first abseil into the Cosmiques

George abseiling into the Cosmiques Couloir


Another team of skiers just ahead of us had started to abseil in on the (skiers) right of the couloir, so we rigged our abseil on the left hand anchor.  The weather was perfect but cold, and two 60m abseils quickly allowed us to reach a good platform under a rock and below the steep rocky section.  As an aside, it is safest to abseil at least 90m into the couloir (which is easiest with 60m ropes) rather than trying to take shortcuts and sidestep through the rock bands.  Although this is perfectly possible, one skier fell the length of the couloir trying to do this the day after us - and he certainly wasn't the first, nor will he be the last.

The first 50m were scoured and quite steep (~45 degrees) but after the first few turns the snow improved and everyone started to enjoy themselves.  There is a small band of rocks at about two-thirds height which is most easily bypassed skiers left and the following section was in superb powder.  Throwing turns in this 'hero snow'  was brilliant and everyones confidence quickly improved.  We took the exit gully on the right and, although the snow got a bit choppy towards the bottom, we all arrived on the Bossons Glacier with big smiles and burning thighs.


Will at the top of the couloir
George just below the upper rockband
















After skiing the glacier back onto the front face of the Plan d'Aiguille we headed down the Para face to finish.  The first section was lovely rolling powder fields which more than made up for the chopped and frozen snow in the gully and trees below.  We skiied, or rather sideslipped, the nasty track through the trees to finally emerge near the entrance to the tunnel.  More than happy with our 2500m of vertical descent we sat down for a rest there whilst George got a lift back to Cham with a couple of other skiers to collect the car.  A celebratory beer in Elevation awaited.

Not wanting to waste the rest of the afternoon we went home for lunch, had a hot-tub in George's garden and then went rock climbing - spending the evening at an interesting limestone sport crag near Sallanches working out some more beta for George's most recent project.  Needless to say I slept well that night.


Will getting to grips with his first turns on the Cosmiques

Looking back up to the Chamonix Aiguilles from the Mont Blanc Tunnel

About Me

Firstly, welcome to my blog.  For those who don't know me I'm Alastair.  I currently live in Derby whilst attempting to perpetuate my status as a student indefinitely.  It's not going to work though as next year I am going to have to join the real world, get a real job, and conform to real holiday allowances and work hours.

In the hours when I'm not studying (of which there are a currently a surprising amount) I can usually be found either climbing, fell running, riding my bike, skiing or mountaineering and a mixture of these activities will hopefully be the focus of this blog.  Being generally introverted and not a particularly interesting person the idea of writing a blog doesn't come particularly naturally to me, but a friend and I are organising an expedition to Alaska this year and part of the sponsorship deal with several of the companies who are helping us out with equipment was to write a blog or report of the trip - so here I am.

My Alaskan partner in crime is Will Harris - who is currently on an extended trip in Chamonix and also has a blog of his interesting activities which you can view here:

http://willharrisclimbing.blogspot.fr/

Whilst I'm not entirely sure how this blog is going to work I hope that some people might find it interesting to see what I've been up to, some may find it useful to receive conditions updates of routes and some may even find it inspirational(!).  We'll see...