aosta – Page 6 – Ross Hewitt Guiding

A New Sponsor – PLUM

30th Nov 2013by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

This week I went down the Arve valley to visit the guys at PLUM and get a tour of their manufacturing facility and see how they make their tech bindings which have quickly become the connoisseur’s choice. And its easy to see why, as an engineer walking round their factory one see’s a quality controlled process that transforms aircraft grade aluminium from stock bar to the individual components of the binding by CNC machining. The components are then assembled and tested under the same roof. The Felisaz family owned business is in its 45th year having a history of making high tolerance components for the motor industry and even Rolex!

PLUM have kitted me out with their ‘J’envoie du gros’ (I send it phat) binding which is slightly wider drill spacing than the well known Yak at 75 mm and an ideal partner on my Black Crows Nocta. A big thanks to PLUM. http://www.fixation-plum.com/?lang=en Courm-2

My Black Crows resting after gorging on Italian powder on Courmayeur’s opening day – Black Crows Nocta 178 with PLUM j’envoie du gros tech bindings. Never thought I would ski so fast in touring boots in the tight trees. I am going to have a lot of fun on these this winter.

A moody day in the Aosta valley. Lurking cloud had us change plans from Helbronner.

Beautiful things often come in small packages – 1000s of dollars worth of immaculate PLUM race heal pieces ready for shipping. Tested to destruction in house.

Petit Mont Blanc – Bonatti Couloir

4th Mar 2013by rosshewittguiding2 Comments

Davide de Masi and Max Turgeon waiting for the gondola to open.

Hard snow. I skied lots of this stuff as a kid in Scotland and its as pleasurable for me as skiing over peoples tracks. I’ll come back to GS this in pow.

Max Turgeon skiing at my turn around point. He went up the the first narrows.

Time for a rest day after 4 days on in the big mountains.

Dent du Geant South Face

3rd Mar 2013by rosshewittguiding2 Comments

I’ve been waiting for the right conditions to get this done for a few years now. This years exceptional snowfalls on the Italian frontiere ridge of the Mont Blanc massif has ensured the rocks at the top are covered, and on the back of a Foehn storm we were guaranteed cold snow. After queuing with the holiday makers until 10 am for the lift it was going to be a race to the top quick to ski before it got too hot. There was no time to wait for the lift guys to put our skis on the cable trolley and we comically wrestled our skis out of their hands explaining we had lost too much time to wait. Running up the stairs with our skis on our backs to the top station (its nearly 3500m) was a rude lactic inducing warm up.

The climb up to the Dent du Geant follows the normal summer line; characterised by loose rubble and slabs under a dusting of faceted snow which all feels a bit precarious. The reward today was 2500 m of lush rip-able snow and 25 minutes later we were down at the road.

Looking back up, the first hot afternoon of spring produced some pretty impressive slides as the face purged its winter coat, trashing it until next year.