KathrynC
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Maybe a little different from other trip reports. I just spent a week on an off piste and mountain skills course in the Chamonix valley area in France. This course is run by a British outfit called Off Piste Performance, who I had previously taken courses with in Scotland. The week consisted of two days skiing lift-served off-piste with a ski coach, alternating with two days touring with a mountain guide, and finally a day with both the coach and the guide to finish off.
Monday and Wednesday were spent exploring some lift-served off-piste with a ski instructor. Chamonix had had a dump of snow a couple of weeks before the course, followed by almost two weeks of wall to wall sunshine. The area we went to, Grand Montets, is high and gets enough sun to soften the snow in the middle of the day but not enough to turn everything to ice. The snow was firm but grippy and well skied with plenty of bumps. We spent a small amount of time drilling on the piste and then took our drills off the piste, focusing on slow control. No skiing photos from those days, as I was too busy following the instructor, but this group shot shows the lovely weather!
Tuesday and Thursday were spent with a guide. On Tuesday, we went to the Le Tour ski area and warmed up on the piste, before traversing round the Tete de Balme and skiing down into Switzerland on beautiful soft snow that had survived the heat. The return provided a nice gentle introduction to skinning for those in the group who hadn't done it before, while we talked about terrain, avalanche hazards and picking lines. A fit team meant that we gained the summit of L'Arolette allowing us a nice off-piste journey back to the resort to finish the day.
On Thursday, we made a descent of the Vallee Blanche, which is something I have wanted to do since I started skiing. We drove into Italy and took the Skyway Monte Bianco to Punta Helbronner. This is a wonderful gondola, new in 2014, which rotates 360 degrees through the course of the ascent so that everyone can see the view. From there, we skied a couple of pitches before skinning up to Col d'Entreves, from which you can see wonderful views of both the Italian and French sides of the Alps. The descent is around 12 miles down a glacier of glorious red terrain (which I guess for most of you would be hard blue or easy black diamond!) with a couple of harder sections where everyone is funnelled between a rock wall and an ice fall and has to ski the same line, resulting in some pretty hefty bumps to navigate without ending up in a cravasse. To finish, you have to climb a really long set of stairs to a gondola (depressingly, the climb regularly features signs marking the level of the glacier in years past), which takes you to a railway station where you can catch a cool little rack railway featuring a toothed track to enable the train to go up the hill.
The Vallee Blanche trip had been planned for Friday with the guide and the coach, but the weather turned that day, and we were all exhausted anyway, so we went to a small local resort, Combloux, chosen because it is mostly below the tree line for visibility. There we played with some steep icy pistes, some more drilling, a mini tour with stops for transceiver and cravasse rescue drills and some great hot chocolate.
Overall, a fabulous trip. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who happens to be in Europe and wants to extend their off-piste and touring skills!
Monday and Wednesday were spent exploring some lift-served off-piste with a ski instructor. Chamonix had had a dump of snow a couple of weeks before the course, followed by almost two weeks of wall to wall sunshine. The area we went to, Grand Montets, is high and gets enough sun to soften the snow in the middle of the day but not enough to turn everything to ice. The snow was firm but grippy and well skied with plenty of bumps. We spent a small amount of time drilling on the piste and then took our drills off the piste, focusing on slow control. No skiing photos from those days, as I was too busy following the instructor, but this group shot shows the lovely weather!
Tuesday and Thursday were spent with a guide. On Tuesday, we went to the Le Tour ski area and warmed up on the piste, before traversing round the Tete de Balme and skiing down into Switzerland on beautiful soft snow that had survived the heat. The return provided a nice gentle introduction to skinning for those in the group who hadn't done it before, while we talked about terrain, avalanche hazards and picking lines. A fit team meant that we gained the summit of L'Arolette allowing us a nice off-piste journey back to the resort to finish the day.
On Thursday, we made a descent of the Vallee Blanche, which is something I have wanted to do since I started skiing. We drove into Italy and took the Skyway Monte Bianco to Punta Helbronner. This is a wonderful gondola, new in 2014, which rotates 360 degrees through the course of the ascent so that everyone can see the view. From there, we skied a couple of pitches before skinning up to Col d'Entreves, from which you can see wonderful views of both the Italian and French sides of the Alps. The descent is around 12 miles down a glacier of glorious red terrain (which I guess for most of you would be hard blue or easy black diamond!) with a couple of harder sections where everyone is funnelled between a rock wall and an ice fall and has to ski the same line, resulting in some pretty hefty bumps to navigate without ending up in a cravasse. To finish, you have to climb a really long set of stairs to a gondola (depressingly, the climb regularly features signs marking the level of the glacier in years past), which takes you to a railway station where you can catch a cool little rack railway featuring a toothed track to enable the train to go up the hill.
The Vallee Blanche trip had been planned for Friday with the guide and the coach, but the weather turned that day, and we were all exhausted anyway, so we went to a small local resort, Combloux, chosen because it is mostly below the tree line for visibility. There we played with some steep icy pistes, some more drilling, a mini tour with stops for transceiver and cravasse rescue drills and some great hot chocolate.
Overall, a fabulous trip. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who happens to be in Europe and wants to extend their off-piste and touring skills!
