So after my last post I completely ignored my own thoughts and went backcountry skiing today. First, let’s keep in mind what backcountry can mean here. In today’s case, it means taking a tram up the mountain and skiing down a glacier. What, that’s not backcountry? This lift was part of the ski mountain until a huge avalanche killed a few hundred people in the seventies, or something like that. So now the tram is used to take the turists to 3000 meters to look around. And yes, I have done that. It is slightly unaccessible - you actually have to take three separate trams to the top.
Second, I didn’t go by myself. I am making friends (and valuable connections). I went with one guy who was a ski bum at Chamonix for two years and who moved here for the winter (“too many people in Chamonix”). There were three other guys, too, all with lots of experience and knowedge of the terrain (another ski bum, a ski insturctor and a mountain guide).
Yesterday I mentioned that the snow was already sliding off the crust, and predicted high avalanche danger today. I was right. There were three Swedes ahead of us (we eight took the first tram(s) up at 10:30), and the first guy on the first pitch got caught up in a slide. But the crust was really stable so only the top layer was sliding, which might have been enough to bury him, but I doubt it. We had localized releases all, and we soon learned to jump on crests to cuase the slides before we started skiing them. I personally did not go first, on purpose. The skiing was decent. Our first run was the standard Toula glacier, which is not very steep, and the conditions were variable due to wind, which resulted in me taking many high-speed facepants on the tele boards everytime I hit windrift or got tired. I definitey felt the elevation, and I was dead after this run. Luckily, the trams close for two hours at midday, so I had plenty of time to recoup. My pals decided that they wanted to ski a line called “Canale del Cesso”, which means “The Toilet Canal”. It is a steep gully (43 degrees) that basically avoid the five minutes of traversing of the standard route and dumps you onto the lower Toula glacier after about 1000 vert. Sounds stupid to do when the snow is sliding? My friends roped up and took turns skiing and stopping quickly, releasing lots of small-to-medium sized avalanches on top of anyone skiing the standard route. Then we skied it, and it was awesome. The snow was actually really good and it was pretty steep. So that was it.
My new friends are pretty cool and they know a lot, and do a lot. Hopefully I can keep tagging along. All these Euros have those crazy airbag systems for staying above avalanches but I would rather just avoid them altogether. So tomorrow I’m heading back up there in the morning and probalby leaving early to get some chores done. The tram from Entreves is now open, which is nice.
Most of you readers are probably wondering why I write so much, and I assure you that I will probably stop writing this once other people get here to keep me entertained. In the meantime, deal.
P.S. Did I mention how HUGE the mountains are here? They're the size of mountains that don't seem to get any closer as you keep going towards them, and seem to get higher as you go up them.
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