two more amazing days!

First, we have had a cancellation for next weeks BC Intro, arrival day Sunday, riding days Monday to Saturday so if anyone wants to join me next week and can get the time off then give Ruth a shout asap.

I'm just loving this week so far, two great starting days (see previous news) and two more just following on.

These low ratio (1:3) Advanced BC courses are great fun. Yesterday, with the weather not looking so good, we hit up the Grands Montets where I'd seen on the web cam that the top tickets lift was out of the cloud. We headed straight up and did a front face which was pretty good, fresh turns all round but hitting the base a little at the top, lower down was perfect. We then headed straight back up as the cloud was lifting and the Rognons Glacier came clear just as we got ready to ride. This descent was amazing, super deep and all filled in after a night of snowfall. Straight back up again and this time we hiked along the super exposed Belevedere Cable from the top viewing platform, which I've not done for ages, and dropped in right from the top. Again perfect turns all the way but this time we hit the cloud that had risen again from the valley and so had a run of faith exit in zero vis. fortunately we'd headed across left and exited onto the piste just in time.

A quick lunch stop and then we had a great run in Lavencher bowl which was surprisingly empty, untracked and filled in due to the constant snowfall still present low down in the valley. We then did a couple of great laps through the dream forrest where the snow again was surprisingly deep. To finish off the legs (and by this time the boys were starting to feel it) we did a PLan Joran 'Y' Couloir, which again I've not done for years, and it was amazing (or I thought so, although I think some were a little too shot to maximise the potential of the descent!) Anyway, another great day of fast paced riding!

Today we had the Grandes Autannes in our sights up at Le Tour. Again it had filled in over night so we started out with a few warm up laps of the big powder bowl above the Vallorcine lift, which was fantastic. It was so good we just kept lapping it until we'd tracked it out and then moved on to take a look at our project for the day.

The snow pack was a little unstable and we'd already watched one slab avalanche go on it own simply due to wind loading and the face we needed to climb was looking a little loaded in places too so prudence was going to be needed. We took a look and I saw a safe line up the main part of the slope to where we could exit out and crampon up the ridge to the left. We Snowshoe'd up to the steeps, small cracks in a very soft thin slab surrounded my feet in places but nothing much to worry about and we kept a distance just in case it was supproting anything further up. We eventually made it to the ridge and changed to crampons. Further up the ridge I'd envisanged traversing across to the normal exit up easy snow fields but again these proved to be a little unstable and so we climbed the rocky ridge to the left which became quite steep and exposed in places. The guys handled it well and climbed smoothly upwards to come out on the top in glorious sunshine after 3 hours on the go!

The descent, I have to say, was amazing! It started off a little thin and we were touching base for about the first 150m and I was thinking, 'oh no, not after all that effort!' but then it just got deeper and deeper, perfect fresh light and deep powder, you could almost feel every crystal coming out from under your base. At about half way down we rode a perfect windlip forming a vertical wave for about 200m. Slashing the lip and cutting back up and down this perfect wave is what I'd like to imagine it feels like surfing the perfect wave in the ocean. It was amazing all the way down into the valley in trient, powder all the way and definitely one of the best descents of the season.

Tomorrow, if the weather holds we're going for the Col du Floria. A big day out with some steep climbs and steep descents at 45 degrees on the North Face. Should be good, I'll let you know!!

All is good and the snow is great!

Neil.