Tuesday 24 January 2012

Combe de la Gliere & ENSA Couloir

I've just got back from an amazing day at Brevent/Flegere, where we skied the Combe de la Gliere and then the ENSA Couloir. The skiing must have been so mind blowing that it cooked my brain as I've just managed to delete all the photos from the day - oops. 

The Gliere is accessed via a short skin from the top of the Col Cornu chairlift at Brevent, and brings you out onto the bottom of the Lachenal piste at Flegere. The skin up is pretty brief, and then the snow all the way down was perfect, 6 inch deep powder all the way back to the piste and all the other skiers. 

The ENSA meanwhile is accessed from the Brevent top bin and is known as an uber classic steep run. In reality only the top 50 metres is steep, but it deserves respect and would be tough in bad conditions. Lucky for us the whole couloir had a lovely firm base and 6 inches of light powder on top. :)

We then got a load of fresh tracks down the Brevent face, but unfortunately ended up with some horrific crust for the final few hundred metres. With a perfect short ski tour, tons of a powder and a classic steep line in the bag, it didn't really seem to matter though. 

One thing that was obvious today was the effect that the wind has had on the snow up high, and while SE aspects were incredible, but SW was generally terrible, so there is clearly plenty of good snow, but it just takes a bit of thought to find it. Good weather on the way for a couple of days, so I have a few ideas...