Dinner up the Mountain La Crapahute
Mark Dalton and his restaurant La Crapahute are a local legend. Nestled just at the bottom of the skiable part of the Valley De La Manche Mark’s restaurant is available for group bookings in the evenings during the winter for a mon of 10 people. We took a group of 20 staff and friends of Mountain Spaces up for the evening towards the end of the season.
Getting to the restaurant is a 20min walk up from the end of the cleared road and you can hear the restaurant before you can see it (I won’t spoil the actual surprise). It’s not to far to go with kids and gets the appetite going ready for dinner.
Dinner is a simple but tasty affair with Savoyard specialities the only dishes on the menu, and I have to say one of the best potato gratins I have ever had. Mark’s a great host full of stories, games and tricks, including going to find two of our group who got lost on the way up on the snowmobile.
Dinner time!
Liv and Carla from Mountain Spaces
That’s an egg Mark (in the red) is about to throw into the fondue pot via the ceiling to mop up the last of the cheese.
Remains!
Mark and Rupert the bear at the bar
No caption will do this justice, book for yourselves and go and see.
Cheaper and considerably more dangerous than a sledge on the way home.
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.
Col Du Grand St Bernard
With the lifts about to shut for the season we headed over to the Col du Grand St Bernard between Switzerland and Italy for a night in the refuge.
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.
More recently the Hospice and the Col has become synonymous with the image of the St Bernard dog with the barrel of brandy round it’s neck. The legend is that the brandy was to rejuvenate victims of avalanches or hypothermia until they could be rescued by the monks who acted as mountain guides.
The barrel of brandy appears to be part truth part legend but the dogs were certainly used by the monks, to clear paths in the snow following the scent of a trail buried in up to a metre of fresh snow and sniffing then digging out victims of avalanches, one dog is reported to have saved 40 lives, on finding the 41st victim the dog was stabbed by the victim who thought he was being attacked by a bear. The victim escaped from the snow and followed the blood trail left by the St Bernard back to the safety of the hospice where the dog later died. Sucks for the dog!
Not intending to die in an avalanche or stab anything a group of 3 of us set of early to hike up to the hospice, drop off some kit then head over to the Italian side to find some nice spring snow, leaving the rest of the group to come up later and meet us for dinner.
Parked at the bottom of the Col, in the summer there’s a road up to the top, this is as far as you can get until about July. Left about 9.30am for the hike up
Heading up with Craig and James, split boards have got to be the way forward, carrying boards is hard work!
Looking up the last part of the route to the Hospice, is a bit steeper than the first part as it doesn’t follow the road. About an hour into the climb by now and starting to get pretty hot.
The top, well the hospice/refuge anyway. 2500m above sea level and a well earned 15min break to drop off some overnight kit we didn’t need to carry any further. Whole climb took about 1hr30. Jamie blitzed it later in the day in 1hr12 but we can’t all be whippets.
Looking back from the Italian side at the statue of Napolean, the frozen lake and the Hospice in the distance, the mountains aren’t wonky in Italy it was just really hot and couldn’t see anything on the camera display as it was so bright.
We’re going up where? There?
Once we dropped down into the valley on the Italian side we traversed round to a non-south facing slope as there were signs of recent avalanche activity on the sun facing slopes. We picked a route up the North facing side of a gully and set off with boards on backs and Craig skinning up, and yes it is as steep as it looks.
It was now seriously hot as my sunburned forehead will testify to! The climb took us another hour or so with the going getting harder near the top as the sun degraded the snow even more until snow shoes were sinking in on the deeper snow on the top ridges. We stopped just short of the top (10m or so) as the snow was almost impossible to walk up by now and we’d run out of time to traverse round any further.
At the top and in serious need of a sit down!
Craig and James set off first in the slush, having seen how soft it was I opted for one mahoosive toe side turn down the main face really letting go as the snow was slowing things down a bit. The climb back up to the hospice nearly killed me!
The best looking refuge ever! Complete with comfy beds, electricity, hot water and an awesome room.
The others including Kate, joined us later in the evening as we got to sit down to veggie soup, pasta and tuna salad and apple compote, none of us lasted very long before hitting the hay.
The next day was pretty cloudy higher up and spoilt the plan to re-climb the same route as the day before and then drop off the back, back down to the car park. Still didn’t spoil a good group photo.
Heading back down after a fantastic couple of days. One of the best places I have ever visited without a doubt.
Snow Shoeing!
Before the lifts are open for the winter season proper there’s still loads to do. This is us with friends and family snowshoe trekking on the col de L’Encrenaz overlooking the Roc D’Enfer. You can see how much snow there is already, some of the lifts are already open at teh weekend and parts of Avoriaz are already bashed and ready to run.
Coming down was fun in the powder, kind of a cross between floating and running. The snowshoes are really easy to use, they look like they could be a complete nightmare but once you get into a strid and adjust to them it really is as easy as walking normally. Making your own tracks helps a lot as there aren’t patches of compacted snow to make the shoe sit unevenly.
Our guide very kindly brought vin chaud along with him, some had more than others!
Snap
Motley crew, me and Kate are sitting down becasue we can’t figure out how to stand back up whilst wearing the snow shoes!
Later on that evening, more powder and the lifts only open at the weekend!! Must buy split snowboard and skins for next season!
Mountain Spaces
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The French Alps
