Sat, 7 March 2009
Vertical Climbed: 934 meters (3,064 feet)
Vertical Descended: 868 meters
Rating: 3.2
Avalanche Risk: 3
Snowline: 749
Route
Follow the hiking trail, lots of signs, to the summit. You can't really get lost, the summit cross is visible as you exit the forest. You can ski back the same way via some fields before picking up the trail or descend by the couloir des Lavanches: Lachat 1559 (cattle trough) -> Roche Franche -> the start of the couloir is on the right of the forest at 1250 meters.
Trip Report
Saturday I was free for most of the day so set off for the Reculet and the “secret” Avalanche Gulch on the West side of the Reculet. This couloir is rated 3.2 but needs a good depth of snow. I’d forgotten how far the drive to Lelex was from Geneva, you can get to Chamonix quicker. There were a couple of cars at the carpark at the entrance to the Hirondelles road tunnel and the track was already well made. Setting off at 9am I was at the summit, the massif cross on the Reculet by 10.30. A little over 600m an hour vertical. Probably quicker than the aging drag lifts at Lelex! Still in the biting westerly wind you had to climb to keep warm. To find the couloir you have to keep a barb wire fence marking the cliffs 50 or so meters to your left. Not somewhere to come in a whiteout (which is frequent here). You will see a round cattle trough then ski a short, steepish slope (we now had 20 cm of fresh powder on a hard base) before a horizontal strand of trees. At 1250 meters there is a clearing at the start of the forest and the couloir is to the right, steep and with some brushwood you ski over a step (which was snow covered today) before exiting into a wider couloir. If you ski the woods to the left you avoid this step. The Couloir des Lavanches is wide and very skiable and had a good 30cm of fresh powder. Note the name: Lavanches == avalanche, obviously some big slides come down this way keeping the central couloir clear of trees.
The Jura are very windswept mountains and there is a risk of small windslab.
Access: Bellegarde -> D591 Chézery-Forens, parking just before the Hirondelles tunnel on the left
The snow between the summit at 1700 and 1500 was windswept with some pockets of powder. Icy at the summit.
