Alpine Break

This is a great line with over 1500m of descent, with around a thousand of it being in a spectacular 45 degree couloir. We used the lifts at Pelvoux which for 5 euros will take you up the first 1000m leaving an easy skin up to the top.

The first twenty meters needed to be downclimbed to get past a fin of rock in the middle of the couloir

After an open section of couloir it then tightened up a bit. It tightened up to about 175cm which was a bit to tight to get through with 190cm skis, and we both had to down climb for about three meters.

After the narrow section and a bit of a dogleg there was a big open section that gave a good view down to the valley floor and an indication of how much more there was to go. There were some foot steps heading down from here, the assumption was that someone must have droped a ski down or something. Not an enviable situation.

after some medium width couloir it then opened out again for a bit and a few large radius turns could be cranked in. But this was only about half way down and there followed a long section full of really nice snow that I couldnt stop on to take pictures before being spat out at the bottom.

Looking back up the line through the rocks was not at all obvoius and I couldnt get the guide book photo that I wanted. The ski back to Pelvoux takes you through the campsite in the closed village of Ailfroide. This place doesnt see much sun in the winter and there was a fair hat of snow on the roofs and phone boxes.

Here is a map of the ski

download it to view in Google Earth

Filed under: Photo on February 20th, 2008