Today has been a great day for ski touring but very cold. Yesterday we did a classic, the Combe de Giglas in the Chartreuse, this is the route we took

http://www.trainingloops.com/combe-de-giglas_David_11-12-2012.htm

1400m+ of vertical. I’ve never toured directly from St Pancrasse but it saves having your car broken into at the col du Coq car park (bag snatch the other day) or crashing on the snow and icy covered roads.

We took it easy to the Pravouta, setting a good trail through the edge of the forest up to the safety of the ridge. It is a big face if it goes and there is a huge amount of snow at the moment. We then took the ridge across to the Roc d’Arguille before heading onto the NW slopes down to Perquellin. Route finding is tricky with lots of little cliffs in the woods but with so much snow almost anything was possible.

There is well over a meter of snow with about 40cm of fresh. Things have settled a bit since the weekend.

A style comparison here

wide and open

tight and neat

We then climbed the 600m back up to the Col des Ayes to descend down through the woods back to St Pancrasse. The snowplough had passed so it was no longer possible to ski across the road as it zigzagged through the fields. I was tempted to ski over a snow covered greenhouse but just imagined the headlines in the local paper if the thing had collapsed under my weight.