The couloir de Pertuis is pretty rare for the Belledonne. Around 800 meters of straight vertical chute angled at between 40 and 45 degrees. There are steeper couloirs, the Cloches de Peres in the north of the range is more in the 45 degree zone but not many as esthetically pleasing as the Pertuis. The couloir is clearly visible from the pistes of the 7 Laux ski resort.
I’d never skied it. This was not from lack of motivation but finding other people who wanted to do it was not simple. This season the avalanche risk was beyond my safety level for much of the winter and in spring it is hard to find this south-west facing couloir with corn snow.
Comberousse and the Gleyzin bowl
2nd of July. Last week it had snowed down to 1800 meters and the Pertuis had skiable snow down to 1550 meters. It is possible to bike up to 1250 meters so that left just 300 meters of portage. It had been hot, maybe too hot? I saw this more as a reconnaissance for another season rather than great skiing.
Pertuis – huis like the legal term “huis clos” is latin based and means door. The Pertuis is the door from the Gleyzin valley, with its big, avalanche prone bowls, into the hidden Veyton. This large, flat valley is rarely skied. Access from the Breda side is long and the refuge, which might form an interesting base, is often buried under snow in the winter. Parties have had to bivouak within a hundred meters of the refuge after failing to find it in poor weather.
My plan involved climbing to the Col de Clarans. I thought that it might be possible to ski the east side and traverse over the col de Fontaines but there was little snow on this side. In the Gleyzin the snowline was 2100 meters, it had been possible to ski to the refuge d’Oule at 1900m the week before. So I skied down the Clarans and fitted skins to climb to the Col de Moretan. The snow was dense, neve, with no refreeze it was very skiable but there was quite a lot of dirt and rocks to avoid on the surface.
Col de Moretan
Skiing to the Moretan was not simple. My skins were saturated and despite efforts to dry them I had to climb the last 100 meters to the Col. The descent on the Veyton side is intially steep, again with a lot of debris but good snow down to 2100 meters. From here I climbed to the Perhuis which is the first valley on the left (west) marked by an Easter Island like figure at the col.
Rocky Horror – the descent from the Moretan
The couloir had some of the best skiing of the day at the 2350 meter summit. Smooth and relatively clean snow. Below 1800 meters things got nasty. The couloir is a stream bed and there were two places I had to take skis off to climb past places where the snow bridge over the river had collapsed. Skiing on top of a live river didn’t enthuse me much, I tried to keep to the banks of the couloir away from the toboggan of white water a meter below the snow. In a number of places large geule de poisson (fish mouths) had opened up ready to swallow innocent skiers. At 1650 meters I called it a day and decided to down climb on the right bank which was now shallow enough to walk. The snow continued another 100 vertical meters.
Climb to the Perhuis
The walk back to the car, under a heavy July sun, was not pleasant and I was pleased to find my mountain bike waiting for me for the last couple of km.
Couloir de Pertuis
The snow has been exceptional in quantity this spring and early summer but my late season sorties have made it clear that you really have to take advantage of the winter conditions when they are there.
Pertuis – Sorted.
