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Classic Chamonix

19th August 2009, by Chris Gill

Backcountry Chamonix

WTSS production manager Ian Stratford takes things to extremes in Chamonix…in the search of some untracked powder.

‘Are you sure?’ he asks. ‘Yup, let’s do it!’

Guy looks at me to check, and I’m hoping that I’m exuding confidence. I feel a bit queasy, but in an excited way. I can just see the powder field on the glacier below, almost taste it. So, we start unpacking the ropes. At this point my helmet (now, why did I take it off?), carefully balanced on top of my well-secured rucksack, is dislodged and tumbles in slow motion down the gully we’d just spent the last hour and a half slogging up. After a few moments contemplating whether I should go back to look for it, I pull out my woolly hat and snap it down over my ears: ‘Nearly as good!’ Confidence trembles, and this time I fear it has been noticed. That 200m boot-pack took another hour and a half, and we were both struggling by the time we arrived on top. But what I didn’t expect was the sharpness of the ridge; it was a real knife- edge, with the soft sunbathed slope we’d just ascended meeting the sunless slope of the couloir, at what seemed a ridiculously acute angle. We stopped for an uncomfortable lunch and to drop a helmet.

We’re both experienced climbers, so setting up the belay with our two ropes tied together was no problem. The top 60m of the couloir were unskiable: the large number of pointy rocks on a 55 degree slope made it a suicidal proposition. So we both abseiled, skis on, down two rope lengths. The couloir was not quite as soft as we had hoped and, for at least 400m, the narrowness and gradient was going to prevent many turns. Cue Round two of the ESSC (Extreme Side Slip Championships). It took an age to reach the crevasse (rimaye) at the top of the glacier, and I didn’t do more than six turns. I wasn’t counting Guy’s, but I don’t think he did many more. A small jump over the rimaye and the slope flattened out to a more sensible 35-40 degrees with POWDER! Only about 50 other skiers had been down this area, meaning plenty of clean, fluffy lines of soft stuff – and a vertical kilometre of it too! But time was marching on; the last train home from Montenvers was at 3.45pm and it was already approaching 2.15pm.

A cunning plan

Chamonix, France, 10 April 2007 and it hasn’t snowed for about a month. High pressure is stuck fast over the Alps, diverting any sanity-saving snow to the north. The pistes are bullet-proof first thing, slushy and rotten by midday as the merciless sun beats down. Off-piste is a skied-out, mostly mogulled mess, where knees take a painful hammering one run after another. Desperate times call for desperate measures. During the season I hadskied a couple of couloirs and made numerous trips down the Vallée Blanche – Chamonix’s famous off-piste route descending 2800m/9,185ft over glaciated terrain. So why not combine the two? Out came the maps and a cunning plan conceived.

The Glacier du Capucin is a steep, narrow lump of North-East facing ice, ideally protected from sun and wind. Recent reports suggested few tracks down its still powdery snow field. It sits just behind the imposing, cathedral-like mass of the Aiguille du Tacul that dominates the lower part of the Vallée Blanche. Two massive, flat glaciers join at its feet; look up the valley from the Montenvers train station and you can’t miss it. Everything in this area is on a terrifying scale: jagged mountains tower above you, and in places the glaciers are 400m/1,310ft deep. There are only two routes onto the Glacier du Capucin – one involves an awfully long walk around the Leschaux glacier and up the 1km vertical of the Capucin itself; the other is via the tricky Couloir Nord du Capucin, which neatly drops you onto the top of the glacier. The climb is shorter, with a total ascent of 850m and possible to do in a day. Just.

Kitted out

Taking the first cablecar (7.30am) to the Aiguille du Midi, we were down the arête, checking gear and stepping into skis just 15 minutes later. The air was still; the skies a deep blue. Today was going to test all areas of our high mountain skills. We had the gear, but did we have a clue how to use it? We each carried touring skins (we were both using ski touring boots and bindings on ‘freeride’ type skis), climbing harness, ice screws and 30m rope for crevasse rescue (god forbid!) and abseiling if the couloir required it; crampons and an ice-axe in case the climb became steeper and icier, plus an avalanche transceiver, shovel and probe that no off-piste skier should be without, the ubiquitous hydration sack and plenty of snacks. A recent ‘training exercise’ on the easily accessed Couloir Poubelle on Grand Montets, proved we could do couloirs in hard, icy conditions – where the last thing you want to do is turn and give gravity the opportunity to speed you to the bottom. It gave rise to a new sport: Extreme Side Slipping. That experience was heartily endorsed as Round one of the Championships; we hoped it would never be repeated.

A quick ski down the right side of the Vallée Blanche meant we cut onto the bottom part of the Glacier des Periades. By 9am we had attached skins to skis and were following a well-worn route towards the Brèche Puiseux – a Chamonix guide favourite. After an hour, we headed left up the valley towards the Aiguille du Tacul. By 11am we’d climbed 650m to the point where we would have to start climbing on foot, as the terrain got too steep to continue up on skis. Crampons on, skis on the rucksack, ice-axe in hand, a sense of adventure and what the French call ‘esprit de alpinism’ spurred me on. Good job too: labouring up a 45 degree slope at over 3000m with the sun in your face and the snow softening underfoot is tough. Ten steps up, followed by a protracted round of breathing. Slowly the number of steps between stops reduced.

Perfect turns

I can’t really remember the turns. I remember the euphoric feeling of just being there and that no turns could be harder fought for, or enjoyed so much. The top section was still wonderfully light, the glacier ice underneath keeping the snow at its ideal temperature. The sun rarely penetrated this slope, so there wasn’t even a crust. I floated down, turn after turn, until my legs cried out. And there was still another pitch, and another, and yet another… Lower down, the snow was heavier and spring-like. My tired legs rode the backs of my skis round in long arcs, too weary to ski aggressively or with good technique. Finally I flopped exhausted onto the flat Leschaux glacier and watched Guy ski the last hundred meters, painting lazy turns on the amazing canvas of snow, ice, rock and sky that lay behind him.

The congratulations had to wait. It had only taken us 20 minutes to ski the glacier, but we had another 7km to go to make the train – along the flat of the Mer du Glace and the final affront to all Vallee Blanche skiers, the stairs up to the gondola. I felt like crawling up them but, despite the slow pace, we made it in time. A beer and a large sandwich at one of the station cafés, accompanied by lots of stupid giggling and slapping each others backs in congratulation, rounded off an almost perfect day. But I never did get my helmet back.

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