Maiden voyage on new snowshoes up the Pointe de Ressachaux, Morzine:

Ressachaux Climb

Thanks for that, do you have a GoPro? The quality is really good (I assume any jerkiness is YouTube’s codecs).

What snowshoes do you both have?

For the route, this is what the guidebook says:

From les Udrezants (1014m), climb to the SW on open slopes then by clearings in the woods (Bois des Chables / le Chable), keep more to the left and a fairly steep path takes you to l’Apliot then the replat du Creux (chalets - 1750m). Fork left, to the North to reach the WNW shoulder of the Pointe de Ressachaux which you can follow to the summit.

Descend by the same route. In the lower section it is possible to cut directly by le Chable (couloir that descends the woods) to avoid the path. A bit gnarly but great if the snow is good.

Orientation : W
Vertical : 1159 m.
Ski Rating (toponeige): 3.1

We borrowed a go-pro for the day. Not a bad bit of kit although hard to aim properly when it’s head-mounted. The maximum quality setting of 1080 is also pretty unwieldy when it comes to editing and maybe not that useful given the pretty basic lens. My laptop - a respectably powerful macbook pro - had smoke coming out of it whilst it tried to digest the footage…

Our snowshoes are the TSL 206 and 226 Approach models.

We ascended initially via the SW path (it starts a snowball’s throw walk away from our front door!), before joining the main route. The bowl/plateau above the tree-line of Ressachaux is stunning - like a lost world a million miles away from the bustle of Morzine. The sun had come round by the time we descended and the snow was a touch thick which (I’m told...) made it hard to ski. Great on a board though!

I’ve been eyeing the hill up for ages and I’m glad we finally tackled it as the snow is rapidly retreating round here… Might not get another chance this winter.

I’m thinking like you, it is getting pretty warm and soggy at low altitudes.

I can’t edit 1080p on my PC and even some 720p formats cause problems, too much work for the CPU. I think 720P is already pretty nice.

Anyway it shows the Haute-Savoie at its best, glades and mountain chalets. It is generally a lot more open than the Chartreuse where I ski a lot.

Good effort. I last went up 4? years ago. It was quite a lengthy ascent!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9huAtNWLGk

I was out on snowshoes a few days prior just up the valley from you at the Col de Coux.

BTW, “The Lady” is 70.

We then went up to the Hospice at the Grand St Bernard.

Davidof,

What is the guidebook you refer to?

Cheers,

Mark

endlessride - 13 March 2012 02:53 PM

I was out on snowshoes a few days prior just up the valley from you at the Col de Coux.

Nice! We almost tackled the Col de Coux this Wednesday but by the time we got ourselves together it was too hot to contemplate. Wandered up to the Col de Golese instead (a bit of shade en route...) and enjoyed a great ride down to the Crappahutte(?) with some weird but enjoyable untracked bits.

La Crapahute = The Rambler - someone correct me if I’m wrong.

Run my Mark Dalton, 7j/7j from Christmas until mid April. A Brit with 24 yrs in the valley and counting!

This picture was taken by one of my guests three weeks ago. Another one here of me showing off the snow depth at 1300m. 1.8m

The Volopress guidebook for the area covers both the west side and the North Couloir

http://www.volopress.net/volo/spip.php?article457

I also looked in Jean-Marc Lamory’s 30 Balades a ski dans le Chablais - not bad for some ideas but it is not covered.