Col du Belvedere splitboard tour!

Chris Johnke gets some fresh turns in the Airguille Rouge!

The last day of last weeks Splitboard course dawned bright and clear and with 20cm or so of fresh snow up high in the Aiguille Rouge we set off for a tour of the Col du Belvedere.

Crampons on and splitboards at the ready! The tour begins!!

The route traverses around from the top of the floria lift to the summer refuge at Lac Blanc before heading straight up crossing the frozen lake to the high col above.

It's a beautiful tour both up and down, here we are above lac Blanc.

Nearing the col du Belvedere.

It is a perfect Splitboard tour, not too steep or technical on the climb so easily accessible with out ski crampons and without to many steep or tricky kickturns on route.

From the col you have a steep North slope to negotiate to access the Belvedere Glacier below and the North facing slopes that lead down in to the Berarde Valley.

The ascent is quite long with some walking in crampons early on to negotiate a steep traverse above a cliff band, as things mellow its time for the splitboards and from Lac Blanc to the top is about an hour and a half of steady skinning.

For the descent we tied 2 ropes together to give us 70m of rope assisted descent.

Chris on the lower!

I lower the guys down using a standard Italian hitch which Allows me to easily pass the overhand knot that joins the ropes together. After 70m its time to unclip from the rope and negotiate the remaining steep face below.

I normally ride the face bringing the ropes down with me, due to icy and rocky conditions I was cautious on the upper half of the descent with my Ice axe firmly grasped and ready for emergency use before riding the lower half which had good snow on it.

Once down off the steeps we had unlimited access to untracked fresh snow all the way down into the Berarde valley.

Liam charging into the Berarde valley!

Mark's last fresh turns before Greenland in April.

Kinnon gets his fill!

Rich charges the lower slopes.

Sean leads the charge to the bar in Le Buet!

A bit of a Cammando exit as usual down to le Buet but a great day out!

This week I have a 3 day Off Piste clinic and so have been over in Italy again making use of the good snow base over there. Tomorrow I'll head high on the Grand Montets hoping to find cold snow off top tickets and down the Lognans Glacier.

Its been Spring time temps this last few days, big melt freeze cycles on the sunny slopes but good cold snow on the North faces. Some quite big wet snowslides the last few days as things warmed up but getting more settled now but with rising temps and the search for freshies heading out towards those hidden untouched North faces, watch out for the deeper weak layers buried since the cold temps of January.


Not much snow depth low down in the Chamonix valley now, the Golf course is now completely clear!! But up high things are filling on a little better with the first of the spring showers last week.

Still not much cover up in the Valley Blanche and the latest snowfalls won't add much stability to the weak snowbridges up there and will make them harder to see so be cautious out on the Glaciers for sure.

Blue skies, warm temps and spring snow!

Not so bad!!

Neil.