Skifahren – Page 6 – Ross Hewitt Guiding

The Cosmic Virgin

13th Mar 2013by rosshewittguidingLeave a comment

After a very busy month ski mountaineering almost every day, the unsettled weather last week brought a chance to rest, hydrate and eat lots; like 5 or 6 meals a day. I was almost light enough to race a bike again!

I also got bored of standing around taking photos and with a neck injury healing up its been good to ski some long pitches and get some downhill power back that has evaporated with all the ski mountaineering. I did however take a few shots of Ally Swinton popping his Cosmiques Virginity in one of the blower runs his week in between gasping for air!

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.

Col Blanc

3rd Mar 2013by rosshewittguiding1 Comment

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.