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Lac du Lou, Val Thorens
Posted: 21 April 2008 11:59 AM  
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This weekend was a trip to Val Thorens with Geraldine and my 3 year old son. This was his first trip to the high mountains and he was very excited to see all the snow bashers heading up and down the pistes from the vantage of our hotel bedroom in the Trois Vallees. Geraldine is not a skier but amused herself checking out the many cafes on the front neige for Onion soup and vin Chaud. We also had a couple of excellent meals in the Trois Vallees and cannot praise their friendly staff highly enough.

The aim of the weekend was to meet up with some of the guys on the Snowheads End of Season Bash (http://snowheads.com). After some delays on Saturday morning Bernard C and I headed up to the Cime de Carron around half past ten. A bit later than I would have liked, I’m more of a first lift man. I’d checked the avalanche bulletin, there had been perhaps 10cm of fresh snow overnight and some very strong winds from the south to south-west. We chatted to the piste patrol who didn’t seem very enthusiastic about the conditions but suggested that the Lac du Lou was ok provided that we stayed in the valley floor. The risk seemed to be surface slabs - there had been a death a couple of days previously where the victim had been taken by a slab measuring just 10cm - but as Werner Munter says a 100x100mx10cm avalanche is tons and tons of snow. Certainly enough to kill you or sweep you over cliffs.

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We took a look at the IGN map. Bernard had done the route with a guide the year before but under much poor snow conditions so didn’t immediately recognise the start. We headed down the Audzin red to the first turn right as this seemed to be the right direction. However we were above some very rocky terrain which although skiable did not look inviting. After yomping up 50 meters we cut along a horizontal path that joined the start of the valley by the Rosael black, a similar entrance to the combe sans Nom which I’d skied a couple of years back. We skied down a short couloir…

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and then onto more gentle, around 30 degrees and open slopes for some excellent powder skiing

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Our plan was to avoid the big, open 35 degree+ north to north-east facing slopes that were pregnant with fresh powder. These neither looked inviting for a traverse or a descent.

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After around 600 meters of skiing down 3 main pitches we arrived at a flat section where we could see the col de la vallee etroit. This moderate terrain was our initial objective but after about 100 meters of climbing we decided to head south towards Mont Brequin and the Pas de la Masse.

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The route we selected followed a rocky ridge between two shallow valleys roughly to the left of the tracks in the photograph. The valleys were cross loaded by the ridge seemed to have a fairly consistent snowpack… just a few cm of fresh on a cohesive base. Where we had fixed skins as 2550 meters I’d probed the snow a bit with my pole and noticed a 20cm cohesive layer sitting on loose snow but this was not evident on the ridge climb. We still left a good space and followed a line of rocks - not a guarantee of safety by any means.

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At about 50 (vertical) meters below the pas de la masse I waited for Bernard to catch up. He didn’t appear immediately so I skied back down a bit. He had some heavy gear and was finding the conversion turns pretty hard going. We decided to ski down from here as it was already 1pm. This would leave a nice 30-35 degree slope. This was virgin when we had climbed but a group of skiers had appeared from...well nowhere to ski down it. They didn’t seem to have much equipment so I couldn’t work out how they had gotten across to hear from the resort. A traverse didn’t seem possible so had they climbed on foot from the Maurienne side? They were not the only skiers we saw too.

... tbc

 
 
Posted: 22 April 2008 03:46 PM   [ # 1 ]  
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I think they probably came from the les Menuires side (of the Point de la Masse). Or is this impossible to the location you were?

 
 
Posted: 23 April 2008 10:58 AM   [ # 2 ]  
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A bit further down and the slope levelled out as we rejoined the normal lac du Lou route. This is probably the most popular descent in Val Thorens and we saw a lot of skiers.

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The snow changed from light powder to heavy powder than to more spring like snow above the Lac. Bernard was “farming the powder here”, not sure why he bothered as everyone else was skiing like they were mainlining on crack

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and finally a look back up to where we had come from.

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Here is the GPS trail

ma[.jpg - click for a bigger version

 
 
Posted: 23 April 2008 10:59 AM   [ # 3 ]  
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Rolf - 22 April 2008 03:46 PM

I think they probably came from the les Menuires side (of the Point de la Masse). Or is this impossible to the location you were?

there were certainly tracks down the the Point de la Masse but I saw three groups appear just below Mont Brequin (see the map link above) which seems quite hard to get to without climbing quite a bit, but I don’t know the area that well.

 
 
Posted: 01 May 2008 01:56 PM   [ # 4 ]  
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From the Cime de Caron you can follow de ridge to reach the Mont Bréquin in about 40 mn. Not always easy, depending on conditions.