Alpine Break

I headed up to Ceillac for a ski today and to check out the area. It is an awsome spot. There is a lot of good off-piste, easily accessible by the lifts, with not many people skiing it which is good. Right in the middle of the resort is a ridge called the ‘crete de la Cube’ the NE side of which is pretty steep and not really skiing terrain. But I did a bit of scoping and think that are a few places where it would be possible to get down it.

There was also a couloir to the right of this shot that I didnt get a pic of but looked really interesting, with a little 1m or 2m mandatory in the middle.

From the top lift there is a 300m hike with 80m of vertical to get to the top of the Tete de Coste Belle from which this south face can be had.

Looking south east from the top of the resort this peak could be seen, with the two obvious lines on it (well obvious to me anyway), I couldnt find either of them in the book. It is called the Rocher de l’Eissassa.

There was one set of skin tracks heading up towards the Pic des Heuvieres. It looked like they were heading up to H19.2 (in the Queyras Toponeige book) the south face of the Rouites. There were some couloirs visible up between the Heuvieres and the Font Sancte. The lowest one being the start of the epic H18 route which is basically a tour of the Heuvieres with six descents totalling 2480m (and six climbs totalling 1700m with the lifts taking the 780 off for you). None of them are mentioned in the book, and it wasnt obvious from where I was whether the two on the left (Font Sancte) would go.

Further to the left is the Font Sancte, the highest peak in the Queyras at 3385m, with its classic descent by the north couloir, H16, the top 100m is 50° and it gets a 5.2 ski grade with 2 for Exposition. For more info on the toponeige grades check out cairnpublishing.com or camptocamp.org

H16.1 – Left Couloir, very narrow, the steepest. 50°/250, 5.3, E3
H16.2 – Central Couloir. 5.2
H16.3 – North Face, very exposed so gets and E4 (certain death in a fall!!) but only 5.1 for skiing.
H16.4 – NW Couloir, big rock in the middle needs rapping over on the way down. 5.1, E3

H16.5 – Not in any books or on skitour.fr, could be a first descent in the making, looked doable.
H16.6 – Also couldnt find any record of it. looks like E4 for sure.

The very far left couloir  that I havent put a number on is 15.2, the Petite Part by the North Couloirs, Ski 4.2 or 4.3.

I also got a shot of Formes de Chaos which is in amazing condition at the moment, there were about 5 parties on it.

Filed under: Photo on January 2nd, 2009