A few guys from the Alpine Club in the UK came out for a couple of weeks to ski tour in the area. Conditions were good and quite a few good tours were done, including a first descent of a couloir off the Pic du Jaillon. There are lots of pictures to come soon, so [...]
Filed under: Photo on March 6th, 2009 | No Comments »
I saw a nice looking couloir on the pic du Jaillon last weekend when I was up at Arvieux skiing with Ollie. I had a look in the book and couldn’t find it so I managed to get Hubert interested in going and checking it out. The couloir I saw is the unmarked one. Working [...]
Filed under: Photo on February 22nd, 2009 | No Comments »
Seb and I headed up today to have a go at this couloir. It was really cold. really really cold. That was the overriding theme of the day, the cold. We did good speed on the skin up, and in the sun it was OK, but once we got in the shade, no matter how [...]
Filed under: Photo on February 14th, 2009 | No Comments »
Headed out to Ceillac again (it is getting to be my favourite spot) with Matt to ski a nice looking north facing couloir off an unnamed peak with a hight of 2766m marked on it. The weather was a bit variable with clouds and snow drifiting in an out all day. In theory it should [...]
Filed under: Photo on February 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
I had a look down this couloir back in January thinking it looked like a good ski, tricky entrance and a small rock step in the middle. With my brother being out for a few days we decided to go and give it a go. When we got there there were some tracks in it, [...]
Filed under: Photo on February 1st, 2009 | No Comments »
I headed up to Font Sancte with John Mallery today to have a go at the central couloir on Font Sancte. The weather forecast was good and the weather seemed to be spot on both at Guillestre and at the car park up at Ceillac. From the top of the lifts, looking over at the [...]
Filed under: Photo on January 8th, 2009 | No Comments »
I had a go at this line on the NE face of la Cube at Ceillac today. It wasnt all that great, too much steep combat skiing in the trees for not much gain. There were a few nice turns in the upper section before the gnarly bit. Then there was quite a bit of [...]
Filed under: Photo on January 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Photo on January 2nd, 2009 | No Comments »
I can see this slope out of the kitchen window and my office window so it has been drawing me towards it for some time now. I had a go at it last year but the road was snowed in far down the valley and I didn’t allow myself enough time. Today the road was [...]
Filed under: Photo on November 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
Pic de Chalanches is a great early season tour when the conditions are right, and today they were right. Later on in the season the skiing can be as good, but the approach is much longer and harder as the road from Villard up to lac de l’Orceyrette will be blocked with snow adding some [...]
Filed under: Photo on November 16th, 2008 | No Comments »
The craggy summit of Tete de Gaulent (2867m) can easily be seen from the front of our house and I have been keen to make my way up it for some time now. I managed to tempt David Monteith, an Alpine Club member, who was staying with us to come along. I wasn’t exactly sure [...]
Filed under: Photo on October 13th, 2008 | No Comments »
This descent came well recommended with Nico Vuilloz himself saying it ‘knocks the stuffing’ out of Mega and Maxi Avalanche courses. With just over 200m of climbing needed for this outstanding 1200m descent it is a must. The weather looked normal down in Guillestre, but as we headed into the Queyras we could see a [...]
Filed under: Photo on September 15th, 2008 | No Comments »
Lac du Distroit is up at 2519m altitude at the southern tip of the Ecrins National Park. This walk starts from the trailhead in the Rabioux valley above Chateauroux les Alpes. The path climbs up from the valley floor on the south facing slopes under the steep slopes of the Chabreyret ridgeline. There is a [...]
Filed under: Photo on August 13th, 2008 | No Comments »
Ollies first day out skiing. We headed up to Ceillac so that Ollie could have a little play on ski’s. He had a little flirt with the off-piste, getting in his first set of first tracks before heading back onto the piste.
Filed under: Photo on March 24th, 2008 | No Comments »
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 [...]
Filed under: Photo on February 20th, 2008 | No Comments »
Jerry Gore had been looking at this ice fall out of his kitchen window for the past few years. He had asked around in the valley and it turned out that it had not been climbed. It looked in condition and I was keen to get out and try out my new leashless axes so [...]
Filed under: Photo on November 29th, 2007 | No Comments »
This trail is just amazing. We started out at about 1600m which gave us some 600m of climbing on 4×4 track before we got to the lake at the col du Lauzet, then another 100m of more technical climbing including some carrying to get up to the 2352m col de Moussiere.
Filed under: Photo on August 11th, 2007 | No Comments »
Bowing to public pressure we have started to name the trails that we ride rather than trying to describe them using the names of the cols or valleys that they pass through. This is an awesome freeride descent down some great trails. The initial climb is a bit tough as it starts at 2600m and [...]
Filed under: Photo on August 7th, 2007 | No Comments »
Another great ride. We used a shuttle to cut down a bit on the climbing making this more of a freeride descent. Though there was still 800m of climbing by the end of the ride. Initially the track heads up some forestry roads out of Ponteil up towards the Cabane de Tramouillon at 1963m where [...]
Filed under: Photo on July 19th, 2007 | No Comments »
The lifts opened at Vars yesterday so I headed up to see what they had on offer. There is just the one downhill track that is closed to pedestrians. All the rest of the trails are more freeride and are open to walkers, though I didn’t see many.
Filed under: Photo on July 8th, 2007 | No Comments »