Tag: dave searle

High Altitude Darts And An All Time Passerelle

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I’ve been walking past this one for the last 15 years and its never really looked that appealing with runnels, glazed snow, climbers, dropped objects, skiers, Japanese tourists etc. But when we went up for a quick Grands Envers in a window on Monday I took my usual glance over and was surprised that the snow looked really flat.

With no better plans Dave Searle, Si Christie and myself dropped in the next day. 120 m down a tourist decided to use Si as a dart board. Lucky the ski pole hit him handle first. (thanks!). A little further down another tourist’s ski is protruding out of the snow in the couloir.

Skis on, ready to go, I looked down and noticed the pivot on my boot looked loose and was worried about it coming completely undone. Not much choice but to forget about it at this point!

The snow was unbelievable; soooo deep, very cold, sluffing, fluted and did I mention deep? We all went in with low expectations and came out with massive smiles., the best pow of all time!

Dave Searle going in with the audience of tourists.

Waking up now.

Cold in here.

Me skiing, photo © Dave Searle.

And again, photo © Dave Searle.

 

Si in the upper couloir.

We didnt expect this.

Deep.

Deeper. Searler showing he is back from tibial plateau fracture in December.

Deepest.

2 Hot Chicks, 30 cm of Pow, Fast and Furious Action, What More Does a Man Need?

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After months of dry sunny weather the storms have rolled in and yesterday was a non stop till you drop kind of day on the ‘Phatest’ of the ‘Phat’ skis. Perhaps the last great tree ski day of the season with jumps, drops, pillows, hip checks –  all at warp speed. My brain was frazzled by lunchtime. We were joined by ski tour racer Lyndsey Meyer who was packing some power with her Doberman 150 boots which were being worked! I dont know any guys man enough for those bad boys!

Meeting a mate after lunch we went for a final lap. The viz had gone mid mountain  as we lined up for a Chinese DH (Cham rules – i.e. last down, read the weakest, buys the beers and pizza. This ensures you go out and get better until you are either not the weakest or financially broke and have to go home, tail between your legs) down the hotel face to the car park.  As we chatted Dave jumped the starters orders and I shot of in persuit. Catching him quickly I was looking at him over my shoulder wondering why he was slowing so much when I felt the ground go beneath me. Attention back to where it should be I saw one of those evil cat tracks 2 m below coming up fast. I had visions of my lower leg coming up through my knee. I tend to try and roll onto my side on these occasions to avoid the full slam. The impact was the biggest I’ve taken and quite impressive up my left leg as both skis blew off, my lower legs bending on the tops of my boots. (glad I didnt have those Doberman 150s!)  My femur had tried to go up through my pelvis for a moment I thought there was no way my hip hadnt broken. All I could hear was this ringing in my ears, ‘deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’, like in the 80’s when the TV channels shut down at midnight and they used to play that ear piercing noise to wake you up to go to bed.

As someone who’s suffers badly from SI joint problems I couldnt quite believe it when I stood up. Apart from that ringing in the ears I seemed ok.

95% of my skiing injuries have resulted from slamming down onto flat unmarked cat tracks. I remember going for a spine X-ray at Cham hospital when I was 17. Another time we were in Courmayeur skiing through a forest and there was a  track pisted horzizontally through it. I cricked my neck and Anna who was hot on my tails blew her nose open.  Dangerous or what?

I’m sure you are wondering where the photos are. Well it was too good to stop mid run for the first few hours and when we did slow down cause we were knackered it was for a run up higher skiing some open pow. Fun meadow skipping but not impressive:

I forgot about this little afternoon run we had earlier this year:

Rond

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Yesterdays powder at Grands Montets was fun and a chance to get out the big skis and go fast as you can with not a care in the world and no mountain backpack weighing you down. With the stickier snow and good weather forecast, today was a chance to get back up the Midi anticipating one of those multi-run days that have been so elusive since before XMAS. Its been a strange season, one of extremes, lots of snow, warmth, Siberian cold, sun and heat, no snow, and so far a shortage of mileage Midi days that leave my legs toasted. In comparison to last season which was dubbed the ‘no snow season’, I had clocked up 17000 m powder days at Courmayeur, speeder biked through trees until my brain couldnt take it any more, and done a lot of high mountain touring.

Today our group went round to the top of the Rond and found crusty snow on the aspects that saw the sun yesterday afternoon.Since everything else would be crap we went in and I really enjoyed the upper pitch to the exit couloir. Dont get me wrong, this was still considered skiing on the arrete but afterwards out right under the buttress there was alot of sluff accumulated which offered sweetness. The exit couloir had off course been baked yesterday afternoon and I expected the worst but in the end enjoyed the variety of conditions it through in. After the snow in the Angelique and Chardonnet it seemed fairly normal skiing to me. However my friends didnt really see it that way and were not up for a second lap. So I went bouldering instead and the big mileage ski day remains as ever elusive.