On Monday, much to my horror, I saw that Meteo France were forecasting sun for Tuesday morning. I hadn’t been banking on some good weather so quickly decided to take the day off work and head up to Chamrousse, the 1968 Olympic resort. There was snow at 1650 meters and a lot of lift mechanics hanging around at the car park at 7.30 with their new Ford 4x4 SUVs. The new Gondola was running taking maintenance crews up to the summit.
First stop, climbing the pistes to the Croix de Chamrousse. There was a fairly good refreeze with 10cm of snow in resort (a mixture of old snow making and the fresh snow of the last few days).
The winter weather had left the summit blasted with rime ice. You have to wonder what some of the equipment actually does.
Vostok
The resort signposting wasn’t very helpful
I skied down to the start of the Casserouse black then took skis off and climbed up to the Casse-Rousse summit with the idea of skiing the Couloir de la Via Ferrata.
This slope is around 40+ degrees and rated somewhere in the 4.* range (probably a short 4.2/Exposure 2 due to a rock guarding the exit, it is steeper than the Couloir en Virgule at the Col de Marcieu for example). It is avalanche prone in the winter when there is powder as you exit the couloir but today it was corn snow and seemed very stable. I’m a bit nervous of these couloirs where you can’t see the exit having skied one of the Combe de Bedina couloirs in the 7 Laux in December only to find the exit was barred by a small cliff.
Conditions in the Belledonne are some of the best since 2001 for mid-May.
At the bottom of the couloir I crossed the edge of the lac Roberts and climbed up the Eulier to ski down the north-east face. The snow was heavy powder on the climb, the south/west slope is sheltered from the sun by steep cliff wall and springlike on the descent but not as good as the couloir. I think this was due to the slope being more open and maybe not getting as much of a temperature differential as the couloir.
The North/East slope is 3.2/E3 due to cliffs at the bottom.
From the bottom of the Eulier I climbed up the Grand Sorbier couloir. I didn’t fancy the wind loaded slopes of the Sorbier and instead climbed the North couloir of the Grand Van. I’d done this in 2006 with Luc, Sylv’ and Franck in rain and snow but conditions were much better today. Powder in the couloir but there was a lot of spindrift towards the exit and the SW to WNW slopes had windslab… about 20cm deep. This seemed to be from fresh snow being blown in on north/west winds and a warning to what condtions might be like on west aspect slopes higher up. Later in the day I learned that a group from the Annecy CAF had trigged a major avalanche on the west facing col du Gebroulaz at 3000m above Val Thorens. Not somewhere I would have toured that day to be honest. Two of the group were badly injured.
From the top of the Van I could see two skiers climbing to the Grand Sorbier. Personally I would have taken my skis rather than downclimbing the slope.
Conditions in the couloir were pretty good. Ok it is not mid-winter so not the same quality of powder you see in January.
The couloir is 3.1/E1.
The weather began http://pistehors.com/news/forums/newtopic/4/to close in at the Lacs Robert and no chair lift today for the last 300meters back to the Croix.
I skied down the Olympic Black from the Croix thinking of Killy. It is surprisingly flat for a black run. Probably around 25 degrees. The Casse-Rouse is a better run. The first 200 meters were in powder which turned to heavy spring snow.
Great shot of the new gondola lift with Grenoble City behind.
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