Some more cool pictures from Chamonix

Luckily my friend Dave skis with a camera some of the time. He captured a few images of me throughout the trip, and here's a few that I like. Here I am skiing some pow on the lower slope of Mt. Mallet.Here I'm skiing some pow at the top of the Aiguille de Belvedere.
Climbing to the top of the Aiguille de Belvedere.
Dropping in to the Col de Cortes, this thing is steep.
In the sun dropping into the Col de Cortes.
A little bit of Chamonix rock stepping. They seem to walk on rocks with their skis a lot there. I don't really mind doing it, it just looks a little weird in pictures.
My first ever skis on rappel, I think it went well, and was followed by some more rock stepping...
And nothing like a beautiful knife edge ridge walk in a white-out. This run was tons of fun, rappelling, rock stepping, ridge walking, and even a little powder skiing mixed in for good measure.

The Aguille du Midi and Adventure skiing with Dave

The fabled Aguille du Midi is one of the most ridiculous ski lifts in the world. Putting a tram to the top of this tower of rock was a crazy idea, and it is even crazier that they actually did it. It does, however, offer access to some of the most extreme ski terrain in the entire world, and that is pretty cool. The other day Lynn and I headed up there to do a quick little tour, and eventually we headed down the Vallee Blanche. Our ski was more like a little sightseeing mission as the conditions down the Vallee were a little rough. It is pretty amazing to ski through huge seraced glaciers for miles and miles, and cool to check out even if the skiing is bad.
One of the most interesting parts of our run was finding this cave that they bore into the glacier. At the end of the Mer de Glace, or Sea of Ice, they have made a cave that you can walk through as a tourist attraction. I'd never walked around inside of a glacier before, and it was pretty cool.

And in typical French fashion they had to take it to the next level. There was a thirty foot long carved ice bear in the cave, Why Not? They had also lit up the cave with all different colors of lights and had carved a number of rooms. In this photo you can see the Ice cave, and a variety of older ice caves that have since been abandoned. I think they make the cave in the same spot every year, and that gives you a good idea of how fast the glacier moves down the Valley. I think it is also pretty interesting to notice how the top of the ice is cover with so much rock and dirt, it almost looks like the ground, a moraine in the making I guess...

The Mer de Glace is truly an amazing sight to see. Even though our ski run wasn't that great I was really psyched to check out this incredible place. Touring the ice cave alone was something that I'll probably never forget. Mid winter you can often ski down to town from here, but later in the spring, like now, you would end up walking down. They have an old cog railway that runs from the spot this photo was taken and that was a really unique and fun way to end a great tour of the Valee Blanche and the Mer de Glace.

The next day Dave and I decided to go for a ski in the afternoon. The snow hadn't been great, so we were going to go on an "adventure" ski. It was clear as a bell until we got to the top of our run, the Ronde Glacier. As soon as we got ready to drop in a cloud rolled in and completely whited us out on top of a very steep and firm ski run. Having been down this area many times before, Dave was fine with it, since I'd never even looked at what we were about to ski, it made me a little nervous... Here's Dave sitting at the top of the Ronde, hoping the cloud might lift...
It didn't really lift, but it was in and out, so we made our way down to a variation of the normal route of the Ronde called the Heart of the Ronde. This variation usually involves a little bit of rappeling, and the photo below is a shot looking straight down the line. Dave wanted to do a variation of this variation, and this is where the real adventure began. Directly left of this line is a knife-edge ridge which would lead to the skiers left side of the Heart of the Ronde...
And this is what the first half of the knife-edge looked like. We roped up and Dave went ahead and made some nice steps for me to follow. This ridge may not look that crazy, but a slip down either side would have been pretty ugly.
We followed up our ridge walk with a little rappel to get into the top of our line. Remember, any rock you see is vertical.... I don't commonly rappel with skis on, but that sort of thing is the norm here in Chamonix. Thank goodness for our ropes because without them we couldn't even really have attempted this line. Eventually we made it through these rock cruxes and got to the slope we had set out to ski.
And ski it we did. Here's a shot of Dave shredding a powder turn down the variation of the Heart of the Ronde. The clouds were in and out all day, and it was even snowing from time to time. For all of our efforts and rope work we were rewarded with about 15 sweet powder turns which was pretty awesome considering that most of the snow elsewhere had turned to crap.
Getting to this line truly was an adventure, and I thank Dave for showing me this little gem. While the conditions may not be ideal it sure is a lot of fun playing around in these huge mountains.

Chamonix Steeps

My friend Dave told me that lines in Chamonix were steep. I knew that they were, but had never really experienced it for myself until now. Today we went up the Grand-Montet and headed back into the Argentierre Basin to ski a line that Dave was keen on skiing. When we got there we found that the wind and the sun had done a number on the recent snow, so we opted for the line that looked like it had the best chance of being good. In the photo below, Dave hikes toward the Col de Courtes, pretty much directly in the center of the photo.
So we skinned to the bottom of the first Bergschrund, and went immediately for our crampons and ice axes. This thing is steep, and not only is it steep, but it is also long. Apparently this line is 50 degrees for 2,000 feet, or so... This picture gives you a good idea of the pitch, about a quarter of the way up, just past the 2nd bergschrund.
At one point I took over bootpacking for a while and looking down was a little scary. Not only was I being followed by Giulia Monego and Jon Minogue, but the pitch we were on was unrelentingly steep.
Eventually we reached the top and waited for the other parties on the slope to make it to the top. Dropping in on top of them would probably have been a little rude, and might have sloughed on them pretty badly. While waiting for them to arrive I had a chance to get a shot of the whole run. This things holds its steep pitch all the way to the bottom. Falling is not recommended. Unfortunately the snow in here wasn't perfect pow, we had hoped that the wind wouldn't have screwed it up, but it had. The variability of the snow made dropping in on this thing a little more puckering than it could have been, but it was fun nonetheless.
If you look closely you can see Italian freeskiing sensation Giulia Monego making turns down the steepest thing I've ever skied. This line was a first for her, and coincidentally was the first true line I've ever skied here in Chamonix.
About halfway down my buddy Dave skis the chalk like he means it. The steep lines here in Chamonix are very commitiing and you aren't out of harms way until you're down on the glacier, and even then you're on a glacier which isn't the safest thing in the world either...
Having skied some "steep" lines in the Sierra, I thought that maybe I already had some steep skiing experience. Little did I know that I know pretty much nothing about steep skiing. Chamonix is the Sierra on steroids, probably about three times bigger... While my buddy Dave may have called the conditions today in the Col de Courtes "the worst I've ever skied it", it was still an eye opening experience for me, and definitely the longest steepest run I have ever skied in my life, I thought it was pretty sweet.

More powder skiing, and cheese.

After our first day in Verbier it started snowing. It snowed quite a bit at the highest elevations of the ski area, so we headed out once it cleared to check out some of the other easy to access, "sidecountry" at Verbier. Right off the bat we headed up to the top of the Mont-Fort, 3300 meters, 10,000 feet. The view from the top of Verbier is pretty incredible, and in the photo below you can see the top of the Mont-Fort Tram with the imposing Northeast side of Bec de Rosses in the background. I didn't ski the Bec while we were there, but in the future I'd love to take the big hike up there and see what its all about, but there was just too much good snow all around...The skiing "inbounds" at Verbier is great, but the resort was pretty skied up prior to it snowing, so it didn't get completely smoothed out. The hikes off the backside of the Mont-Fort, however, were quite smooth before it snowed and the endless terrain was really fun to get out and explore. The photo below shows just a little part of the area that is accessible, and your adventure is completely dependent on how far you are willing to hike. We skied primarily on the big faces in the photo below. Those pitches are about 2500 feet long....
Did I mention that the snow was incredible? Blower powder and faceshots were abundant, and I had a hard time not laughing out loud as we cruised the huge untracked powder faces.
In the photo below, Lynn crushes some low angle waist deep pow after negotiating the steep cliff riddled face behind her.
The skiing was really, really good. We skied as hard as we could and enjoyed every last minute of our time in Verbier.
Here, Lynn hikes past an old church way up in the mountains. There are a lot of old buildings and crazy scenes up in the Alps, the kind of things that you'd imagine you might come across while skiing in Switzerland. But we had a train to catch, so we didn't waste any time getting out of Verbier to head over to Chamonix to meet up with our friends Dave and Rosanna.
We packed up our stuff and got on our way to the steep skiing mecca of Chamonix, France. The train ride itself is spectacular. The train winds its way up into the heart of the Alps, going through tunnels, small Swiss and French villages, and past huge glaciers and valleys, eventually stopping in the bustling ski town of Chamonix. Its my first time here and the scale of everything here is pretty mind boggling. In the photo below, the Aguille du Midi is on the left, and some of the huge hanging glaciers that are common around here are visible in the middle and on the right. The top of the Aguille is 9,000 vertical feet above where this picture was taken to give you an idea of just how big these mountains are...
We didn't want to waste any time or beautiful weather so we got up early the next day and headed to the Grand-Montet to go on a tour out to the Glacier Grand. The backcountry skiing scene in this area is unlike anything I've ever seen before. People from all over Europe, and of all ability levels are out in the mountains going all over the place. I wasn't really ready for the masses of people you see walking all around on the glaciers in these huge mountains. The photo below is an example of the popularity of "randonee" skiing in the Chamonix valley.
Its no mystery why so many people are getting out there though. These mountains are so amazing beautiful that it would be foolish to not get out and enjoy them. In the photo below Dave and Rosanna hike up from the Argentierre Glacier on our way up to the Col du Passon. The peaks in the background are a stunning backdrop, and yes, some of those lines are skiable, when there is enough snow...
Lynn makes her way up the last bit of the hike to the Col. The glacial travel around here is pretty incredible and can also be quite treacherous. Most people carry an avalanche shovel, probe, beacon, rando rope, harness, ice screw, prusicks, rapelling device, ice axe, and crampons. Needless to say, my pack is a little heavier than usual...
This area is truly incredible, and we are psyched to be here, now lets ski some more pow...
Fortunately, the winds overnight didn't affect all the snow out there, and Lynn finds some more of the light stuff on our way to the Glacier Grand.
After skiing a little we strapped the skins back on and hiked another hour and a half or so up to the Col above the Glacier Grand. From there we got an 8,000 vertical foot run down to the town of Trient. We checked the map and found a cool variation down the mountain and got out of the main Glacier run that most people do. It was pretty much 2 Alaska heli runs stacked on top of each other, truly amazing. In the photo below Lynn skis out below the seracs at the bottom of the Trient Glacier, this kinda stuff is just your run of the mill, day out on the mountain here in Chamonix, but a completely mind blowing and new experience for me.
And in classic euro style we end up miles and miles from where we started. The run we skied is off the peak on the far left of the photo below, and now we're in Switzerland... From here its a bus ride to the train station to catch a train back to Chamonix. Lucky for us our friends have a Raclette cooker at their place and for dinner we ate cheese, and lots of it.
Several years ago while I was heli skiing in Alaska my guide told me, "you think these mountains are big, you should go to europe, it is way bigger than this.". I didn't really believe him, until now.