After a slow start to the winter, mother nature has more than made it up to us this past week. Conditions for skiing have been amazing, with long, sunny days and a deep snowpack of light powder. With most resort skiing now heavily tracked out, today we stretched our legs a little and headed over to…
Fun times today re-visiting a Chamonix classic, the Col de Beugeant. A quick ascent, incredible views and ridiculously good powder on the descent. What more could you ask for!
A nice tour today up to the Col du Tacul then back down via its south west couloir and the Glacier des Périades. The original plan was to drop down the other side and ski the Capucin Couloir, but with the snow seeming so good on the way up it proved too hard to resist just…
Following another dump of fresh snow, some sunny high pressure has rolled into Chamonix and with it some excellent conditions for ski touring. After chatting over a couple of ideas with Joel, we ultimately decided to head over to the Aiguille du Tour to check out its Table Couloir. The couloir is a classic of the Mont Blanc massif that neither Joel…
Mont Blanc’s wild and rugged south side is somewhere I’ve wanted to ski for a while. Whilst the normal ski route on its north side sees the passage of many hundreds of skiers each spring, most skiers stay away from its south side and the Brenva basin. Take a close look at the area and you can see why. The terrain…
The North Face of the Cursed Mountain. Sounds like a pretty terrifying line to ski! In reality Mont Maudit’s North Face is a lot more friendly that its name suggests and makes an excellent summer ski. From the Aiguille du Midi, it takes about 3 to 4 hours to reach the top of Mont Maudit. Once at the summit…
Just when I was about ready to put away my skis for the year, Joel arrived back in Chamonix and convinced me to put in a few more turns. I’m glad he did as we found some great skiing on the East Couloir of the Aiguillettes du Tacul yesterday. Though one of the ‘easier’ lines on…
Chilled day skiing fresh powder in the sun today. Can’t really ask for much more. Not many photos as my camera ran out of battery, but I think the two below sum things up pretty well 🙂
Fun day skiing Midi laps in fresh pow with Joel. Had a bit of a mix-up at the end after getting greedy and reckless looking for fresh turns in one of the entry gullies into the Requin exit couloir. After putting in a turn a couple of metres below where everyone else had cut left into the…
One of the things I love most about ski touring is exploring new areas. If that can be combined with skiing a great line in good conditions then for me skiing doesn’t get much better. By some careful planning and a good dose of luck Joel and I managed to tick all these boxes earlier this week when…
Tim Oliver Alpinist 