Mountains – Page 6 – Ross Hewitt Guiding

The Alpine Trilogy Project – Skiing’s Triple Crown

10th Jun 2015by rosshewittguiding1 Comment

Its been a busy few weeks here which kicked off after a heavy dump of snow plastered all the faces. A project had been forming in my mind over the last year which involved skiing and shooting 3 of the biggest, baddest and hardest lines in the Alps. The Matterhorn is perhaps the most well known and iconic mountain in the World. Any time you ask a child to sketch a mountain they draw you the outline of the Matterhorn. Its East Face is an incredible slab of rock, steep enough to defy logic that snow will stick, and its rarely in condition. The West Face of Mont Blanc was a must, Himalayan in scale, the upper pitch alone is 1200 m of 50º starting at 4810 m, combined with another 1000 m of 45º couloir skiing below. This one had been alluding me since 2009 and in years when you have already been skiing for 7 or 8 months, its tough to hold out through June for it. The obvious choice for final route would have been the Eiger West Face but I’d already done it in 2011 and my interest lies in exploring new places. Having not skied in the Brenva Cirque, the Brenva Spur was the obvious choice. A route steeped in history and coveted by Alpinists in a remote and wild setting. After a mild season with low valley snowfall levels, we would be entering and leaving the Brenva by Col de la Fourche and the Aiguille du Midi rather than being able to ski out to the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

All that remained was getting the right partners with the head, experience, strength and fitness to take on these big days. When we embarked on the project I guessed there was 50% chance of completing it in 5 years. The Brenva fell to us first in a 12 hour day and a few days after we nailed the West Face in a 14 hour day – the last 3 hours without water. Reassessing our chances I now put them at 60% chance of completing the project this season but the long term forecast was showing that temperatures would rocket. A couple of days later we were off to Zermatt for what would be our only shot at it. And we did it!

Skiing the Trilogy or Triple Crown in a period of ten days days was a full on experience, mentally and physically. The shortest day was the last one at 10 hours, all 3 days were at 4000 m or more, and all were a race against the clock before conditions became dangerous in the heat of the day. A bit like doing 3 iron man races in 10 days? Maybe, but who cares, this was a personal quest to ski and shoot in wild places with my friends.

Finding skiers who have enough energy left for some big pushes at this time of the year can be tough but a big thanks to the ever psyched and super strong guys who joined me at various stages along the way to make this project a massive success: Mikko Heimonen, Jesper Petterson, Tom Grant, Enrico Kareletto Mosetti, Guilhem Martin Saint Leon.Below are a few shots from the trips with the good stuff and full blog post still to come.

Sundown from the Cosmiques Refuge, en route to the West Face with lots of trail breaking to do over Tacul and Maudit.

The Matterhorn East Face under full moon as Mikko Heimonen sets off from camp.

The East Face plastered the day we skied it.

The West Face of Mont Blanc with our line

The Brenva SpurHeading in the Matterhorn, with low cloud we couldn’t see the line in the upper couloirs

The Midi or Mothership at Dawn, the best ski lift in the World

POV Shot from the Brenva Spur, Italy under a sea of clouds

55º uppers on the Matterhorn above and below

Some POV on the Matterhorn in a steep section looking towards Zermatt. In the upper central couloir of the Matterhorn

Me on the Saudan’s West Face line – photo Guilhem Martin Saint Leon

Enrico Karletto Mosetti and Tom Grant on a lush morning on the Brenva Spur

The Grand Gervasutti Couloir

12th May 2015by rosshewittguiding3 Comments

Tom Grant and myself had a look at the Diable Couloir this morning on the East Face of Tacul. It wasn’t happening so we skinned back up Mont Blanc du Tacul and skied the Grand Gervasutti – its an awesome plan B to have and we are lucky in Chamonix. I got a bit of a shock when I dropped in – there were some people climbing it about 700 m below, fortunately they were out of our sluff line – I’ve not heard of people doing that for 20 years!

The Grand Gervasutti is the 800 m line centre right.

Mont Mallet – West Face

3rd May 2015by rosshewittguiding1 Comment

The West Face of Mont Mallet is a line that stares you right in the face as you exit the tunnel from the Mothership and its been teasing me for years. In the old days it used to be a large curtain of snow draped down the mountain (pan de rideau) but climate change has thinned it out to couloir in the upper half. In all my time in Chamonix I’ve only heard of a few descents, Andreas, Francois-Regis, T-crew, Minogue…some approaching by the Rochefort Arete and some by the Breche Puiseux – either way being reasonable long, like 2 normal ski tours put together combined with lots of doubts about the condition of the snow, crevasses, rimayes encountered along the way.

I needed someone fit to go and when I asked Tom Grant if he was up for an adventure over there his usual psyche shone through with a ‘mmmh, yeeeaaahhh, sick!’ On our first attempt it had snowed 15 cm the afternoon before and as we ran down the Midi arete we were surprised when instead of sticky steep skiing snow, cold wind affected snow cracked and ran off the old layer. That day plan B came into play and we went to the sunny east facing Breche Tacul.

Second time out I knew the snow was prefect after skiing the Rond in a few big turns the day before and we were joined by Andy Houseman who was training for his expedition with Jon Griffiths to Link Sar in Pakistan this summer. I have not shot that much this winter but with conditions looking perfect I took my SLR.

After going over the Puiseux we were all feeling the altitude breaking trail in sticky pow up the Mont Mallet Glacier as the sun bore down and got reflected at us from all angles in the crucible. Getting on the ridge looked improbable with a 60 degree ice face with large rimayes and in the end we got lucky found a line snaking through mixed ground. We all had doubts right up until the last moment when we arrived on the shoulder and looked down to find the curtain of pow was draped down our slope. Rock n roll! Andy Houseman climbing to Breche Puiseux above. Myself and Tom pulling the ropes after the Breche below.Tom having a ‘mmmh, yeeaahh, sick’ moment to himself above. Andy and Tom breaking trail with the Jorasses and Calotte Tom and Andy on the Mont Mallet Glacier above and trying to find a climbable line up the face on the right below.Myself and Tom 50 m above the rimaye and me traversing the 50/55 degree face after threading some rocks. The final slopes to the top above and arriving on the shoulder below just in time as the sun came on.Prefect flat cold snow above and first turn below. Above, Andy getting started as Tom surveys the line. Below Tom slashing out some turns.Andy skiing above and myself skiing with the SLR on my hip below. The couloir is quite long and the snow still great at mid height. We had the excitement of riding on a big face with sluff running hard and building into a major avalanche below. The central pan de rideau was sent in 5 turns.

The line from below, the central section went in about 5 turns.Myself having a quick look over the shoulder at the face with the protection of a mega crevasse. The quality of snow was definitely up there in my top 10 and comparable to when we rode the Frendo in 2013.

A Day with The Girls

28th Feb 2015by rosshewittguiding1 Comment

Drawn to the Dark Side

26th Feb 2015by rosshewittguiding3 Comments

Hotter than the Sahara.

Its times like these you need spanking paddles on your feet. Born in the Chamonix Valley these preceded poor imitations such as ‘verts’ and enable easy bootpacking in chest deep powder.

Minna about to cut the snow on the rope.

Making the turns count in the hanging couloir above the cliff before we went over the marshmallow on the left to the hanging snowfield.

Someone needs to put in a bolt anchor in these climate change years as the old one on the spur is out of reach with skis on now forcing a tough transition to boots to bounce test the dark age slings. There’s good rock on skiers right that doesn’t have water ice under the snow like old anchor on the rib, perfect for skiing into the anchor. Titty deep, you can’t argue with that.

Cold snow lying undisturbed with handfuls of hoar frost, above and below the last layer.After the technical turns in the couloir it was stunning to just let rip down the meadows to Buet.