Boy have we been lucky with snow conditions. After a 3 day storm I went to Skyway with the dream team of Dave Searle and Tom Grant to see what had happened. 1-2 m accumulations were expected and were found, but after a couple of ski cuts nothing avalanched and we got on with hoovering as much powder as possible with each of our ten 1200 m runs. Here’s the goods:
Fantastic day with Dave Searle, Griffin Post, Mikey Arnold, Thor Husted, Miles Smart, Gilles Sierro, and Hans Solmssen.
The Toula Glacier at Skyway is already super well filled in and I’m ready to guide clients there. The staircase has been extended this year all the way down to the glacier making access a dream. This is one of the all time classic off piste runs in the area where you can ski powder in the sun during the colder months of December, January and February. Combined with some laps of Youla or Arp at Courmayeur and fantastic Italian cuisine and you have the perfect day.
Sustained crack climbing after the easy intro pitch was the order of the day. A beautiful burly route on fantastic granite.
Me on the 6b warm up pitch.
Gareth seconding the 6b warm up pitch
Gareth engaging the 6C P2
Burly laybacking approaching the belay
Bulgy with a gravelly mantel onto the belay ledge
My view as I weigh up the physical layback and foot smears that lie ahead
And the view down from the belay
Gareth arriving at the belay after the crux 7A pitch
A German team behind starting off on the crux
Pulling hard on finger locks here.
Wooden wedges on the final traverse pitch
Indurain for me is the best of the Trident route with varied climbing on splitter, flakes, laybacks and grooves. So good!
The Trident
Me on the initial warm up 6b pitch with required a forceful approach with a toasted body from a hard days cragging the previous day.
Gareth on the diagonal crack
Grovelling around in the offwidth
Spanning out to the layback flake
Burly moves onto the belay ledge
Gareth departing on what I though was one of the finest crack pitches in the massif. A fine 6C hand crack heading up right.
Gareth fully engaged in the hand crack
Nearly there, on the steeper bulge at the top
Me on the groove 3rd pitch
Me on the crux 4th layback pitch
Looking down the layback pitch, Gareth’s white helmet just visible
The top 5+ pitch, a bit gravelly but the final 6th pitch is worth doing and takes you above Bonne Ethique’s ab line.
Ross Hewitt Guiding 