The West Breche of Bedina is right opposite my house so has been taunting me every time I go to the guardian to pick dandelions (a ski tourer has to eat after all?).
As the ski resort of les 7 laux is now closed I decided it made sense to climb via the ski runs and indeed there was fresh snow right the way to the parking lot. They obviously made far too much this winter.
However nothing is perfect and a lot of vehicles had been driving up and down making ruts and they had even cleared a trail for maintenance vehicles leaving a huge “canyon” criss crossing the slopes.
From the col du Pouta it was a choice of skiing down into the bowl and reskinning then climbing a steep couloir under the Jasse or attempting the airy ridge traverse. I had my crampons so opted for the traverse. The main problem was the east facing side of the ridge had 1 to 2 meters of non load bearing snow so I ended up to my waist at times. The best bet was to keep just to the steep west side. The main obstacle was the first pinnacle, after that it was fairly easy walking. You need real crampons though as there is a lot of ice under the snow.
There was the usual crowd at the Jasse. I didn’t hang around, there was an icy breeze, instead I skied down the east facing slopes which were just transformed by the sun (10am). At the lacs de Venetier I reskinned for 100 vertical meters then scrambled up the snow free slopes to the breche (breach). From here the couloir was visible below.
I was probably an hour too early. The snow had good grip but there were a lot of frozen ruts, not my favourite. The sun was only just beginning to hit the snow at 11am.
The route follows the couloir down to the plateau then takes a second couloir to the right of the pointy rock which you can see in the middle of this photo.
Looking back up it seems almost flat, but it is a 4.1/4.2 E2 ski grade.
Once I got to the sunny slopes the snow was nice corn. I stuck to the combe de Bedina which has not been developed by the ski resort and retains a certain wildness. Lower down I rejoined the pistes, but on this side of the resort only a narrow 5 meter wide strip of snow remained.
