In late February it was time to head into the Haute Maurienne once again for our long standing ‘Steep Coaching & Adventures’ week.
The general situation in the French alps was a complete drought since mid-January, and the forecast was not too encouraging, but as always, thanks to the multitude of micro-climates in the Haute Maurienne, we hit the jackpot.
Day 1 dawned with a really low cloud base, not ideal when we needed to get above the treeline, but as the day wore on two things happened – 1) it snowed about 10cm 2) the visibility gradually cleared (below a certain altitude…). Thanks to some good local knowledge from my pisteur friends we were able to drop in ‘blind’ to a couple of couloirs which gave great skiing, with the new snow on top of a smooth base – perfect for a shakedown day!
On day 2 we headed further up valley, with 15-20cm of fresh and variable visibility, and lots of opportunity to lay down some foundations for steep skiing tactics.
The following day saw us back further down the valley, with the forecast showing precipitations spilling over from the Italian side…
So it proved to be, with intermittent snow and a light breeze helping to fill in the couloirs we were lapping. A slab release by another skier who had cut high out of a couloir onto a steeper shoulder also highlighted the risk, particularly on steep lee slopes, and made terrain choice key to have fun (and stay safe) on the following days!
Days 4 & 5 followed a similar pattern, as reports from neighbouring ski areas were that they had much less fresh snow, while we were skiing shin and then knee deep light, cold powder!
Great conditions to get lots of mileage and build confidence on steeper, narrow terrain. Lapping around almost in sync with some pisteurs from local areas who had come to enjoy their day off – it was interesting to see other professionals making very similar terrain & timing choices!
For our final day the team voted for a tour starting from the lifts, heading right out to the Italian border. Our initial plan to ramp up the steepness again was shelved as there were lots of signs of recent purging with more to follow (on the way down there was evidence of many new fresh snow sloughs & slides… always nice to have a decision reinforced in hindsight!), but the fall back option was pretty good!
Thanks to Stuart, Anni, Tariq, Benedict, James and Robin for a great week ! Having spent 6 days skiing increasingly deep powder it was a harsh return to reality the following week in the main Vanoise range where it still had not snowed at all!!
