After last week's adventures I was keen for a slightly more relaxed weekend, and the weather played ball by not being great. Friday was a fairly miserable day and saw no more action than furniture shopping in Geneva and a quick dry tooling session at Le Fayet with Helen.
Saturday was still pretty murky but Vicks and I went up to Le Tour and she did her first ski tour followed by her first couloir - a fine effort. We just skinned up to the Refuge at the Col de Blame then hung a right and followed the ridge for half an hour or so until we found a nice looking, steepish descent. The snow wasn't great but nice to be out and great views when it cleared.
Vicks on her first ski tour - she's a natural!!
Refuge de Balme
Today was nothing short of immense. Emma and I had heard conflicting reports on Courmayeur so we went to check it out but took the cragging gear in case it wasn't looking good. As it turned out we skied perfect powder down steep couloirs straight off the top lift. We started out with the one straight under the cables and it was so good we did it twice. Then we tried one a bit further along the ridge and again it was so good that it required 2 visits. Below both there was absolutely perfect and untracked powder, so there were plenty of grins all round. One little tip, the queue to get on the Youla lift is pretty long, but the queue for the Arp (the very top lift) is non existent, so having skied our lines we just walked back up 50 metres of piste to the Arp rather than descending all the way to the Youla. We reckon this saved over half an hour per run, so worth doing.
Emma in action
Say no more
To finish off a great day we popped over to Gaillands for a couple of quick sport climbs and then retired for bacon butties and tea - what a tough life it is.
First rock climb of the year, hope there's plenty more.
There has apparently been high winds above 3000 metres but after today I'm sure there will be good snow for those willing to look for it.