Peter's kitesurfing blog: haute route

Showing posts with label haute route. Show all posts

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Skiing Aguille d'Argentiere

We booked in to the Cabin d'Argentiere for the last night it was open. We caught the telepherique to the Grand Montet and had a wonderful ski down the the glacier. Mark and I crossed and headed up the Glacier d'Millieu to attempt the route up the Aguille d'Argentier, the prominent peak on the east side of the Col du Chardonnet.

Once again it was hot climbing. Our skins balled up badly too which slowed us down a lot. We were following the tracks of a party led by Dan, a Canadian guide and his wife. Mark decided to wait at the bottom of the final pitch - a steep headwall leading the a high col near the summit.

I pushed on, skiing over a small crevasse then dodging a small avalanche that come down the face just to the left of me. The boot trial had been wiped out by small slides and skiers so I plugged on, breathing heavily to suck in enough oxygen to keep going.

I eventually got to the rock band but could go no further. I was sinking to my thighs on foot, and the snow was sloughing away when I tried to ski up using skins. It was frustrating to get within 50-100m of the ridge and not make it, but this is big and dangerous country.

Track log from Aguille d'Argentiere ascent

Some early ascenders skied down and sent snow down to me, so I decided to bail and ski down. It was difficult going down the chute. Grabby deep snow and steep, and I was very tired. I skied down to where Mark was waiting and we continued down the long run. I was struggling to do nice turns due to fatigue, but we made a rapid descent then skied back up a short distance to the Cabin d'Argentiere.

We later realised that the Norwegian skier died 3 weeks ago on the route up the Glacier d Millieu - swept away in a big avalanche. He was found and dug out and carried back to the hut where a doctor tried to save him., but he died from his injuries. The weather prevented helicopters taking him out. This occurred during the very bad storm and winds just before we arrived in Chamonix.

Andy and Heiko, our German friends, were there sunning themselves having skied a route of the Aguille du Midi in the morning. They skied some very challenging routes, including the one we just attempted.

Simon showed up just before dinner having skied up toward the Col du Tour Noir, which he said was a nice route.

We had a nice chicken stew dinner and crashed out early for a good night sleep. Ear plugs came in handy once again as there were a few snorers in our room.

Andy and Heiko got up early to tackle another big ski route prior to driving back to Germany in the afternoon. We saw them early the next morning when we skied above the hut before heading to the Col du Passon. There ski feats were inspiring. And they saw skiers descent the Mallory Couloir from the Aguille to Midi too. 500m of 45 degrees, then 200m of 55 degrees, then an abseil down a shrund! No fall skiing!

Elevation profile for the day

Photo slideshow

Monday, May 07, 2012

Skiing the Haute Route in Chamonix

It has been a long time since I have skied in the European Alps, so with the windy season gone in Melbourne I have headed to France with Mark and Simeon to attempt to ski the Haute Route.

Our bags got lost when we changed flights at Heathrow (apparently this is common) so we had a couple of stressful days in Paris chasing down where they were. After much frustration, they were flown onto Geneva and got to Chamonix before we did.

It has been a very strange season here. It was very hot in March, but in late April and early May it got very cold again and snowed a lot. Much of the Haute Route is too dangerous to traverse, and most of the huts along it are now closed due to the bad conditions.

We had a very nice day skiing in good weather at Argentiere, including a couple of excellent runs from the top of the Grand Montet down the glacier.

We got lucky and skied from Argentiere (near Chamonix) across to Champex in Switzerland. It was a big day that pushed us both to our limits.

Track log from Argentiere to Val d'Arpette

Getting up the Col du Chardonnet was strenuous as we have not had much time to acclimatise to the altitude. We abseiled on skis down the Col then skied around to the Col de Saliena, which was an arduous climb. On the way there I avoided a small avalanche that came down an obvious chute between Mark and myself.

There was nobody else around by the time we got to the Col de Saliena, which was a big change from my last visit there when there were over a hundred people going through.

This was decision time - either we could either return via the Col du Tour back to the Chamonix valley skiing down the Glacier du Tour, or continue on following the route to Champex. We decided to do the latter.

It was a nice ski along the wide and gently sloping Trient Glacier, passing by the Cabine du Trient in the distance. The descent next to the Trient Glacier ice fall was quite safe, we followed tracks and kept away from the crevasses. It was a short shart climb up to the Col des Escandies, and a great relief to get there. It was all downhill from there.

There were lots of avalanches along the southern slopes of the Val d'Arpette, some of which had nearly come right across the valley. The recent fresh snowfalls had triggered these. We skied down the nice snow at the top into wetter snow further down.

We saw a Chamois crossing the snowslope above us. We skied all the way down to some lodges and the bitumen road, stopping for a late lunch by a lovely stream.

We were tired but very satisfied to have completed this section of the route. We got down at about 4pm.

We walked out to the road to Champex and got straight on a bus that was waiting there, seemingly for us. The friendly driver sold us a ticket the would take us all the way to Le Chatelard - the border with France. We changed to a train at Orsieres, then stopped overnight at Martigny.

We returned by train and bus the next morning to Chamonix.