Valley De La Manche 2012
Not an epic day out in terms of loads of hiking or insanely steep or difficult terrain but still one of the most special routes in the whole of the Portes du Soleil as far as I’m concerned.
People out for a weeks holiday are often hesitant about off piste for a variety of reasons, they don’t want to ‘waste’ a day hiking, the cost of a guide and avalanche equipment, or they mistakenly think they aren’t good enough. I would definitely recommend anyone who has a chance to get a guide and give this route a go, it’s a 20min traverse round from a lift so no height to gain and as long as you’ve played around on the side of the piste a bit before you’ll be fine putting your turns in.
Col Du Grand St Bernard 2012
At the end of the season in 2010 we headed up to the monastery in the col between Italy and Switzerland. We had such a fantastic time we vowed to return but with the snow not being so good last season the conditions were never quite right to head up.
The Col is one of, if not the oldest route through the Western Alps with evidence of use as far back as the Bronze ages. The pass is appears in history around 390BC and is well documented by the time of Julius Ceaser around 60BC. Napolean also famously crossed the pass in May 1800 with 6000 men and there’s a staue at the top to commemorate the feat.
This season a rare gap at the end of January allowed us to take our 4 staff, Danny, Carla, Liv and Chris all over to Switzerland and trek up to stay the night.
The guys at All Mountain Rental very kindly lent me an Atomic Poacher split board to test out which also meant I could take Kates board as she was 3 months pregnant!
I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, if you ever get the chance to visit the refuge, even if it’s just in the summer when you can drive up it’s well worth the detour.
Atomic Poacher Split Board
Weather conditions settled down and we had brilliant blue skies the whole way up. First time hiking for Liv and Chris and the first ever time off piste for Danny and Carla!
Pack Horse and Kate!
General Faffing and Taking Photos
Glorious Randonee Weather
The Crew at The Top
Danny Man of The Mountain!
Backyard snowboarding
Firstly Happy Christmas to all of our friends and guests past and present, it’s been a great start to the season and the snow has been epic.
With snow right down to village level and to Mountain Spaces HQ we decided it was time to make the most of what’s on out doorstep, quite literally. With a deep enough base down over the hills in the village we made our way to the top on snow shoes checking out the snow depth and some lines on the way.
Just outside our front door, snow-shoed up and ready to roll
Not quite a husky but he still follows us up the hill!
Mountain Spaces HQ
At the top
Picking out lines on the way down
It doesn’t always have to be on the lifts and getting out away from the crowds can be amazing, only 1 run but well worth the effort.
Pointe De La Vorlaz
Pepsi Max run from the top of the Pointe De La Vorlaz 2346m. Superb off-piste run but the climb is not for the faint hearted!
Started out with a couple of runs through the trees of to the side of the Stash before heading up Le Choucas lift and playing around on the SnowCross for a bit to warm up.
The SnowCross is basically an area that is not pisted but is patrolled, monitored and avalanche controlled, basically off piste but with more of the risks removed.
All limbered up and ready to go we headed to the top of the Cubore ‘up and over’ lift to start the traverse round the South face of the peak from about 2200m.
At the end of the traverse on the South side getting packed away ready for the climb up the face. Was pretty bare as the wind had removed a lot of the snow leaving ice and really hard clumps of grass, excellent climbing conditions!
Once you come off the face at a small col by the satellite station you turn left up onto the ridge for the last couple of hundred metres.
About halfway it gets pretty narrow and exposed although the footholds are better than on the face.
The last section of the ridge leading up to the summit.
The top! And no it’s not trick photography and I’m not a midget, Craig is huge. The descent is all down a North face back towards the Lindaret bowl. No pictures as I was far to busy enjoying all the fantastic snow.
Rochers De La Chaux
10 Mins outside of Morzine is the Rochers De La Chaux in Bas Thex. We’ve not had a chnace to climb there yet with the summer lifts being open it’s all been biking and walking so far so we headed up to reccy the crag for the inter season when the lifts are shut.
The ‘Elephant’s Nose’ as it’s know locally, the site of the Rochers De La Chaux
Routes through the trees, difficult to see the bolts on these photos but all the routes are incredibly well protected with bolts every 3-4m. Our adventure weeks next summer will definately be including several days climbing here. There are over 90 routes, most of them grade 4-5 with multi-pitch routes and some via-feratta. This makes it well within any intermediate climber to have an excellent 3-4 days climbing on a wide variety of routes.
All the routes are clearly marked and really well protected. It’s hard to get over just how many different routes there are.
Scoping out the start of the 90m multi pitch route
Rafting on the Dranse
The sun’s been out for a while and it’s been getting up to 30 odd degrees in the shade! Really hard to keep beer cold but ideal weather to get wet and enjoy the melted snow.
We drove out to AN Rafting’s base just outside of Morzine looking at the river running alongside the road thinking it looked way to rough and the rafting must be downstream only to arrive and find that, that was the exact bit of river we were heading for…..and that the previous nights summer storm had swollen the river from 15 cubic meters a second to 50! Time to dig out the armbands and possibly rubber duck then!
Our instructor/guide/river guru introduced himself as Stephan but said we were welcome to call him ‘elp, funny boy. He knew his stuff and had us hurtling through all kinds of rapids and waves and drops forwards backwards sideways whilst insisting that the most important thing to do if the raft capsized was to keep smiling.
Is it a bird, is it a plane…………..
Soon to be rafting, sans raft!
Grrr, serious rafting face, must, paddle.
Spot who’s in control of who gets wet then.
Mountain Spaces
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The French Alps
