Looks like you worked out some excellent timing for a great tour—which I would love to have accomplished.
What route did you take to go over the Dent Parrachee?

My last day of skiing was the W face of the Aiguille de Peclet on Monday, where the weather the night before and during the day were worse than the MeteoFrance—but still it was a fun day. Despite Georges and my skins getting thorough “gummed up” on the climb with warmed fresh snow.

Tuesday I was thinking of skiing Mt Thabor, but when I drove to Valfrejus it was raining. So I checked out the roads up to two other trailheads, and it kept raining at those too. I drove back down to the valley and got a rental bike in the afternoon at Chambery and rode up the Mont du Chat (which turned out to be a much bigger climb than I expected).

I would sign with both hands to have such conditions in May every year!

Myself I was indeed glad to have the glaciers so well covered (like the day we skied Mont Pourri)—and I got out for some nice tours about two-thirds of the days—but still I would have preferred a week of clear nights and sunny days.

Ken

Yes, we were lucky. Also we were above 2500m most of the time, therefore the snow was not too much impacted by warmth or cloudy nights.

Dent Parrachée: we went up through the normal route: Couloir de la Louza then Chaise du Pape (Pope’s chair!), with the intention to go down the superb Govard (SE) couloir, 2000m right above Termignon, which was in good conditions, but some clouds were faster than us to the summit and we had to ski down the normal route instead… All routes, including the E and NW extreme couloirs, seemed in good conditions.

Dent Parrachée hut (excellent time guaranteed - at least if you speak French...)

For Mont Thabor from Val Frejus, the road to the Lavoir and further up has been cleared for works on the cable car.

ericlodi - 15 May 2009 11:08 PM

Dent Parrachée: we went up through the normal route: Couloir de la Louza then Chaise du Pape (Pope’s chair!), with the intention to go down the superb Govard (SE) couloir . . .
Dent Parrachée hut (excellent time guaranteed - at least if you speak French...)

Thanks, that makes it clear for me.
I’ve been thinking of spending a couple of nights at the refuge Dent Parrachee, so I checked out the road up to Plan d’Amont: well-paved (but not wide) until the last km. Nice to know it’s straightforward to drive in there after the lifts are closed.
Knowing that I could climb the Dent Parrachee from the SW makes it more attractive.

So now the Dent Parrachee hut goes on the list with several others of places I’d love to sleep—if I ever again get three days of stable weather in a row while I’m visiting France.

Ken

Managed Mt Blanc yesterday. Perfect weather, went via the North ridge (Royal Arete) of the Dome de Gouter, we were 3 and there were 2 others in the hut. They lost a ski within an hour of leaving the hut so we ended up being the only party on the route!

Lack of acclimitisation meant that past the Vallot the going was fairly grim, coupled with a strong wind and we bottled the North face, a shame as the conditions were probably good.

Went with Francesca Eyre and Samoens guide Christophe Rezette.

A video here

http://www.vimeo.com/5008507

And some other stuff here

http://www.chaletgeorge.com/ski-tour/

Nice, I had wondered whether you’d made it up or not.

I could not believe we had the route to ourselves. Even on the summit there were only two others, they had come over via the 3 Monts.

Great to see you made it—pretty nice day for climbing—looks like lots of the skiing was pretty good too.

I was glad to watch the video - brought back nice memories of not succeeding back in April—(too bad it took this long for me to discover the video, but my head was way into bicycling already by the end of May.)

Interesting that you had to rappel at one point descending the normal Grands Mulets route. Back in April we could ski the whole thing (from by the Dome du Gouter, not the summit), but one spot was tricky to cross—I guess it had opened up more by June. I’ve heard warnings of rappels over breaks in descending the north face, but not lower down. Good warning to come prepared to rappel even on the normal descent.
(? I wonder if this is going to start to become more frequent in future years? even in a year when there was still non-glacial snow as low as the traverse between the Jonction and the Plan d’Aiguille ?)

I understand the normal GM route (due to serac-fall exposure) has gotten much less popular now for non-skiers, so maybe it’s not surprising that it was uncrowded in June. I guess what is surprising is there were so few people out on a nice day above the bivouac, where the “modern normal” climbers route joins it.

Ken

P.S. Mont Pourri in early May with Georges: Finally got around to posting some photos. Nice to be able to ski it in a big snow year. Big peak in the center of the Alpes du Nord which I kept seeing from lots of ski tours.
I suspect one crux section (south side of Col des Roches) was trickier with so much snow covering all the “roches”. A couple of photos in the middle might be useful for planning if attempting the tour in a big snow year before that south side melts out (even in May).

Things may be different in the Haute-Savoie but you have to stop for people waiting at pedestrian crossings. The law also says that an “motor vehicle” is automatically liable if it is in collision with a pedestrian whether the pedestrian crosses the road on a crossing or elsewhere, even if it is somewhere stupid like the middle of a roundabout or motorway. The only exception is if the driver of the motor vehicle can prove the pedestrian has committed “une faute inexcusable” but that is really hard to prove. There has been cases where someone had suicidal tendencies but even that wasn’t enough.

Damages are less than in anglo-saxon countries, one reason for that is that you can go back to court as many times as is necessary if the injury gets worse.

Driving standards have really got bad over the last 12 months. David was nearly run over on a crossing tonight, the car swerved around him and I saw an old man who was hit on the same crossing a few months ago.

endlessride - 16 October 2009 08:28 PM

I read your advice on driving in France. It is a subject I have taken more than a passing interest in. I teach new ski company employees the rules of the road when they arrive in France each November

That sounds like an entertaining task.

If you know a good English-language web page I can refer people to for tips on visitors driving in France, I’d be glad to refer people to it. I put my page up because I like the idea of skiing and cycling partners from USA, and they all use cars to support their activities home in USA, but usually when they come to Europe they adopt a completely different style of skiing or cycling—which doesn’t fit with my style in France. So I tend to encourage them to hire a car—so they have the freedom to choose different ski tours from me on some days—and that’s worked out great.
But it does scare me that they might get into trouble with some differences between American and French road culture as I encounter it in Savoie.

(Good point about the yellow-diamond signs: I think the reason I didn’t mention them is that I don’t remember seeing them very often in places I usually drive around in the Alpes du Nord. Perhaps if I spent more time in other areas of France, I’d have thought to include it.)

Ken

davidof - 17 October 2009 11:20 AM

http://www.ledauphine.com/diaporama-alerte-au-mont-blanc-la-fonte-des-glaciers-@/index.jspz?diapo=218
it has been a long, hot, dry summer in the Alps.

Thanks for the warning. Guess I’ll need to check more carefully which glacier routes are doable next year.

It is possible to have large mountain regions with great ski touring but almost no glaciers any more: the Sierras of California, USA.
The problem is that in between times of the strong glaciers and of the no glaciers is a long period with broken “tormented” glaciers—when ski tours that used to be reliable favorites now come into condition only once every 5 or 10 years.

So my goal it is to be there in the years when it happens. Like Mont Pourri last May: It was my first time, but my partner said it was much easier to climb and ski than the previous two times he was there—because of the big snowpack.

Ken

P.S. bicycling:
The other problem with receding glaciers is summer road-bicycling. Riding the high mountain roads is much more spectacular when there’s visible snow around them. But nowadays for many roads the only way to see them like they used to be in summertime 50 years ago is to ride them in early season within a month after they are opened.
So I need to have two separate rating scales for prettiness of mountain roads: late spring + early summer versus late summer + autumn . . . (a) many mountain roads look great in spring but kinda boring in autumn after the snow is gone; (b) a few roads look good in autumn because they have views of snow high north-facing slopes (e.g. Lac d’Emosson, Grosse Scheidegg) or pretty lakes (Cormet de Roselend); (c) a few have dramatic whitish rocks that offer spectacular contrast sorta like snow even in autumn (e.g. the Dolomites).
(There’s a famous pass in Switzerland which has been losing it’s spectacular view due to radical recession of a glacier—and there’s rumors + talk of building a dam there and creating a pretty lake).

Briançon - Pralognan: eventually a blog post - homework as there is no snow here yet ;-)

... And a Briançon - Pralognan route on Google maps: http://bit.ly/4uvazP

ericlodi - 01 November 2009 10:29 PM

Briançon - Pralognan: eventually a blog post - homework as there is no snow here yet

Yes it is Sancy Free (of snow) !

I’m currently looking at at Crolles (my home town) -> Briancon haute-route. The idea is to leave from Prabert across the valley and climb over the Belle Etoile (kenr, luc and I did this route last spring) then ski down to the 7 laux and accross the Mouchillon to sleep in the Refuge du Combe Madame. Next day over the Col de la Croix to reach the Grandes Rousses the the Pay d’Arves and from their to Briancon. I’ve not worked out the fine details but it seems like a good plan.

Refuge Info has 14 refuges in the Grandes Rousses

http://www.refuges.info/nav/massif/16/grandes-rousses/

The Etendart would be possible then maybe the Refuge des Aiguilles d’Arves… ensuite?

What I’m really aiming for is a Grenoble -> Turin Haute-Route, is such a thing even possible? I’ve no idea what lies over the border but when I was in Turin last year the mountains look very close.

From the top of my mind: when you are at Aiguilles d’Arves, you can cross the Cerces all the way to Briançon (with an incursion N to Thabor if you like to). You have Refuge des Drayères down from Galibier or Thabor at the end of Nevache valley. Then, depending on the route to cross the Cerces, there are a few huts on Nevache side.

From Briançon, you can cross Queyras then Viso, in Queyras they are plenty of options as you usually go down to lovely villages everyday. I don’t know how close you can get to Turin though - I have never been very far into Italy on skis.

Very nice mountains and very different from Belledone to Cerces to Queyras!