Between 1 and 2 meters of snow in the Southern Alps on the border region with Italy after a major storm developed in the Mediteranean. Some reports on the front page:

http://pistehors.com/news/ski/comments/0917-major-pounding-for-the-southern-alps/

One death and another serious injury in avalanches this weekend.

http://pistehors.com/news/ski/comments/0918-avalanche-at-val-d-isere/

Now we are into spring with very warm weather the risk generally rises during the day. There has certainly been a lot of recent avalanche activity as slopes purge. We saw the glide cracks on this avalanche at Sommand last Sunday

Off piste a Pras de Lys was extremely soggy this afternoon… well I was principally there for on piste skiing with the family so it didn’t bother me.

A little ski tour we did last week in the Morzine area. “The Dents Blanche”, a report and a video here. http://www.chaletgeorge.com/2009/04/05/dents-blanche-ski-tour-morzine/

Your tour looks better than the conditions today. KenR had called me to warn me things were not great but I decided to do the Three Cols tour of the Haute-Pointe as it meant I could ski “en famille” in the afternoon. The refreeze should have been better and between the south-west to north-west it was pretty good as the area isn’t getting too much sun. On north slopes it was skiable and everywhere else it was deep glop.

There has been a lot of avalanche activity since the spring heatwave. This slide is typical:

Full depth avalanche on grassy 30 degree plus slope. There were a lot of glide cracks too.

and this interesting looking fold

A member of the Haute-Savoie rescue services recently told me that the snowpack around these glide cracks are most dangerous when it is cold. Aparently the cold makes the remaining bonds with the slope very fragile. Obviously you’ve got to be careful when it is warm too as meltwater lubricates the snowpack and the surface - lethal where it is slippery grass.

Anyway, until it gets colder aim to go higher than 2000 meters.

Eric + I had a great time skiing the Aiguille d’Argentiere today (Glacier de Milieu, we skied from the summit). Excellent transformed snow at a wide range of altitudes. Our trick was to wait to ski down until later around 14:30 or so. Another team who descended earlier didn’t have as fun skiing in the steep sections.

Ken

"Hot” season for couloir skiing in Sancy. The ice has melted and the snow is far from gone in the shadow

In Val d’Enfer (Vigier and Dinosaure)

Val de Courre and Envers du Redon

Plenty of snow in Chaudefour, here in the Directe du Ferrand. The icefall down this route is buried under about 10m of snow!

Time to ski closer to the Aiguilles du Diable on Sancy! (Devil’s Needles)

Does anyone know what it would be like down in Queyras / Briancon area now/next week? Did that 1+m snowfall hit it 1 week ago, and has it survived the warm weather? Was hoping to do a few days touring there Monday/Tue/Wed if it is any good.

Anyother ideas, within say 2 hours drive from la Grave, grateful accepted.

Thanks

Alan

Here are the lastest tours from the metaskirando site

http://metaskirando.free.fr/?str=&zon=Queyras|Parpaillon|Ubaye|Brian

Nothing since the 7th April though. Otherwise you should hook up with Phil Ingle

http://alpinebreak.com/

KenR from USA - 08 April 2009 09:44 PM

Eric + I had a great time skiing the Aiguille d’Argentiere today (Glacier de Milieu, we skied from the summit). Excellent transformed snow at a wide range of altitudes. Our trick was to wait to ski down until later around 14:30 or so. Another team who descended earlier didn’t have as fun skiing in the steep sections.

Ken

A lot of people skiing that at the moment. The “goulotte” looks very steep!

Thanks Davidoff

Please excuse my ignorance, i can find an Aiguille d Argentiere North of Les Hieres/la Grave,/ southwest of Valloire, map 3435 ET.  However it has no glacier on it, so i think its the wrong one?  Where is the one refreed to in the post?

Thanks!

Alan

Aiguilles d’Argentière is above Chamonix! (near les Grands Montets)

From reports Queyras snow is turning fast into spring snow. Still unstable accumulations especially high altitude in the shadow, and heavy/ humid (with not much refreezing these days) --> risks of both slabs and spring avalanches (level 3)

McHardski - 10 April 2009 03:35 PM

Please excuse my ignorance, i can find an Aiguille d Argentiere North of Les Hieres/la Grave,/ southwest of Valloire, map 3435 ET.  However it has no glacier on it, so i think its the wrong one?  Where is the one refreed to in the post?

I think “Argentiere” is a popular name for a mountain, and there’s at least two in the French Alps. I once did a nice tour on the one near Valloire, be glad to get there again in good conditions—but on Wednesday we skied the one by the Argentiere glacier near the Grands Montets near Chamonix.

Ken

Eric + Craig + I had a great time skiing to the Grands Mulets hut on Thursday afternoon, then climbing the Dome du Gouter (4300m) and skiing down the “old normal” route in the valley by the Grands Mulets (near Chamonix).
conditions:
* approach to refuge (from Plan d’Aiguille): too many exposed rocks after two weeks of warm weather melting the low snow. Very pretty especially thru the Jonction crevasses.
* north ridge: sorta powdery over hardpack down low. Wind-blasted hardpack in upper half: nice “styrofoam” for climbing on crampons, but I can’t wanting to try skiing it. (and I would suspect that’s something like the condition of the N face of Mont Blanc, though we never saw it.
* above 4000m around the Dome: very high winds. Later in the day the Aiguille du Midi telepherique was closed for a while because of winds - (we were lucky to be able to get the lift down to the valley).
* in the valley from the Col du Dome down to Grands Mulets: wind-blown “powder” which partly covered over old ski tracks. Very skiable and kinda fun though variable.

odd story: The winds were so strong that we saw a guide belaying two clients down-climbing on crampons a long section of the upper N ridge of the Dome du Gouter. I have to guess the two clients demanded to go down—though I would never want to down-climb a 35-40 degree slope that long on crampons. Doing it belayed looked very slow.

Ken

KenR from USA - 10 April 2009 07:44 PM

I think “Argentiere” is a popular name for a mountain

I think it is somewhere where they may have done silver extraction, or there were seams of silver ore. At the Argentiere in the Belledonne there is a village at the bottom of the mountain called Valmaure - probably because “moors” - arabs lived there in the past and they were well known for their mining skills. The top village in the Val d’Isere valley was also established by “moors” who carried out mining or mineral extraction.

I’ve been touring with Ken for the last couple of days. The col de la Valette in the North Belledonne and the Pic de la Belle Etoile near the Sept Laux ski resort. It was much colder today, a sign that the weather is about to change. Indeed the south facing Belle Etoile couloir didn’t transform despite the sun and we had a descent on hard snow. Conditions were much better from the foot of the couloir with spring skiing right to the car at 1330 meters.

The next few days will be unsettled. The June temperatures which have done so much damage to the snow the last three weeks will be gone and snow is expected above 1600 meters. There could even be some April powder skiing.

There was a large avalanche that crossed two open ski runs at Val Cenis in the combe de l’Arcelle at around 1pm. It started from 2800 meters and was one of the largest avalanches seen in the sector this year. The slide ran 800 vertical meters crossing the Arcelle red and Rhodo blue. The snow was 15 meters deep in places. A large rescue operation lasted until 19h00 usiing Beacons, Reccos and Avalanche dogs but no victims were located under the slide. The police also checked at hotels and apartments for missing people. It seems the few people on the pistes and the fact that the slide had occured at lunchtime avoided a catastrophe. The sector had been cleared by piste patrollers at 8am but snow had continued during the day.