Spring has sprung!

Wow it's got hot over here this week, spring is in the air!

After a big snow week last week, (check out these photos from Darren Stevenson, one of last weeks Advanced BC riders) the weather has changed and spring conditions have arrived.

Fresh lines down the Grandes Envers - Valley Blanche


Cameron slashes a nice bank, Col du Beaugean

Deep snow for Andy, Plan d' Aiguille

This week we have a BC Intro group with Seb and I have a Custom style week with Gillian and Neil, 2 skiers that won a 'The North Face' competition and obviously got the booby prize of a week with Neil McNab.

Last Friday when we did the Col du Beaugean I took out my skis for the first time since mid December just to have a quick warm up and to see if I could still do it. I need not have worried as it all came back straight away, skiing is of course pretty easy what with having boards on both feet and poles to push around with and we scored perfect powder down the Beaugean.

This last 2 days I've been out skiing the pistes at Le Tour and today Fleger and Brevent doing a bit of ski teaching which I haven't done for about 20 years. I have to say I've really enjoyed skiing for a bit of a change and its good to be able to blast around in the spring slush at full speed throwing in some big wide stanced racing style carves all over the hill. I've been playing around trying to take the same lines that I would on my board, skidding the tails out on lips and making cut backs on banks, blasting through the slushy bumps and generally catching up on a life times skiing in 2 days!

I've been using my Snowboard technique philophosy for skiing using the McNab pressure control system to use the four corners of each ski and it works great. Tweak the back of the ski to jet pressure forwards along the top edge before rolling to the front corner on the turning edge and then driving the presure back along the edge through the foot from toes to heel to power the back again. Great for powerful carves and powerfull short radius turns on the steeps. Feels amazing after all a ski is designed the same as a board so it follows that they should work the same you just have 2 of them!

Gillian and Neil don't like to stop so much and so I've had to eat lunch on the chair and we've been at it non stop from morning straight through until the end of the day.

Luckily I saved some energy for a power squats and leg work session to build the power up for the cycling and even started hanging on my bouldering wall again a little bit. Did a campus session yesterday evening, the first of the winter so I'll see if my tendonitis has finally heeled and hopefully I can get back on it.

I'm going to swap with Seb tomorrow and head out for a bit of a tour with the BC Intro boys, maybe a Grandes Autannes!

All good,

Neil.

Another great week and a superb final day!

Darren scores shot of the day! Col du Beaugean today!

Its been a fantastic week with fresh snowfall early on setting everything up nicely for all the groups, Keith's Off piste tech clinic, Ralf's Backcountry Freeride group and my Advanced Backcountry freeride Group.

After our great day on the Grandes Montets on Wednesday -

Darren gets deep on the Grandes Montets

Cameron on Glacier Lognan.

Andy kicks up some powder, Glacier Lognan.

- Thursday saw us heading up the Valley Blanche for a run down the Grandes Envers which entails a traverse along the Midi Plan ridge towards Col Du Plan which is where you drop into the Envers.

Darren shoulder deep in it - Grandes Envers

The Snow was amazingly deep, sometimes up to your waist on the steep pitches making for some amazing riding in a beautiful and exciting environment.

Andy in the Envers - Valley Blanche

We finished the day with a quick descent of the Combe du Glaciers off Plan d'Aiguille.

The same day Ralf's group did a quick descent of Pas du Chevre and a Grand Envers to finish.

Friday gave us amazing conditions, perfect weather and some amazing snow hidden away on the North facing slopes.

Ralf headed off for a descent of the Glacier Marbre off the Helbronner. Keith took the Off Piste group for a Touring day heading from Brevent over to the Aiguillette des Houches and a descent of the Varcours Couloir whilst I headed off for a Col du Beaugean in the Aiguilles Rouges.

This is one of my favourite tours in the Aiguilles Rouges with a bit of everything thrown in. A big touring day, some rock scrambling, abseilling or down climbing and of course some amazing powder, this was for sure our best day of the week!

The team climbing up to the Col du Beaugean.

The team getting the goods on the way down from Col du Beaugean.

Andy leads Cameron and Darren down some amazing powder! Col du Beaugean.

Darren gets a nice line from Col du Beaugean today!

And so another week ends another begins!

Neil.

More from the big winter 09!

Crazy amounts of snow have once again fallen here in the Chamonix valley and we are once again experiencing mid winter conditions resembling more mid January rather than mid March.

Some interesting layers have formed in the snowpack over the past few days with a slightly more moist snow transported by strong winds that has created some dense and dangerous windslab on slopes of varying aspects.

Be careful out there!

Having said that today was one of those amazing days on the Grandes Montets when everything just seemed to go right. With massive queues at the bottom we managed to get through the Priority queue on the Telepherique in quick time and up on the Bochard with pretty much no one else around.

The sun broke through on our first descent just as we got to the top of the perfectly untouched Canadian bowl. A quick one on the Herse chair got us another untouched deep powder descent of the Italian bowl followed by a couple in Lavancher.

The top tickets lift was now rolling and so the afternoon session saw us hitting up some deep turns down the Lognan Glacier down onto the Argentiere Glacier, again all untracked and perfect snow.

I took a few photos on the last run and so will post them as soon as I get them downloaded. In the mean time tomorrow will be an Aiguille du Midi day and then Friday we have perfect weather forecast so the difficulty is chossing where to go!

Should be good tomorrow!

Neil.

Amazing heli descent - more snow!

On Saturday I forfeited my day off to run a Heli day for Keith who had a couple of private clients for the Trient drop. The Finhaut pick up is off limits at the moment so all Swiss flights are taking off from just below Verbier which makes logistics a little bit more of a problem when finishing up in Trient.

We had a 10am flight, very scenic with Pilot Roland who took us around to view the descent even though it wasn't on route and made the flight a good deal longer. A great flight and smooth drop off on the Trient Plateau left us with, once more, some trail braking to do up towards the Aiguille du Tour.

The air was pretty cold and the snow some of the lightest and deepest powder I've yet seen up there (although I seem to be saying that everytime I go out at the moment!).

I feared the top might have been a bit wind affected as it was at the Col du Pissoir but once we dropped through onto Glacier des Grandes it was to be once again perfect powder all the way!

Once again this had to be classed as one of the best descents of the season with aleast 40 to 50cm of the most perfect light powder coating the whole descent right down until the river crossing at the bottom.

With no other tracks on the mountain the hardest descision was once again which route to take as everywhere looked amazing!

In the end we stuck to the main descent and went straight down the middle.

Keith took some video footage and we had a photographer along for the ride so should have some shots sometime soon. The descent was amazing, some of the biggest and deepest powder turns that I have ever made with powder roosters flying high on every one.

Anyway needles to say it was a great day off!

I'm just having a couple of days rest, Sunday, Monday to let my legs catch up after 9 weeks of non stop courses and riding then I'm back on it tomorrow Tuesday. Miles Bright is Guiding in my place on the Advanced BC Freeride, Ralf is out with the reg BC Freeride group and Keith started out with a quick tour to the Col du Lac Noire before the weather changed for the Off Piste performance team.

Its now dumping with snow again and looks set in for a couple of days before it should clear out towards the end of the week so we can get up high and gain some more massive powder descents.

Until then there's tree runs to ride, my legs are feeling recovered and I'm back on the board tomorrow.

Here we go again!

Neil.

Four weeks of fresh tracks!

Today in Courmayeur - McNab hard at work!

And so concludes my fourth week in a row of getting fresh tracks everyday!

Its been snowing quite a lot since Tuesday when we nipped in a quick ascent and descent of the Grandes Autannes which as usual didn't disapoint even though much of the lower level snowpack had been temperature affected.

Callum - Grandes Autannes.

For the last three days we've been over in Courmayeur tracking out the trees and hitting the big descents into the Dolonne Canyon and the Val Veni from the Youla (the Arp being closed).

Dave dives into the Dolonne Canyon today.

Today we did a couple of fresh laps in the Canyon in super deep powder before finishing up with a nice new descent into the Val Veni where you can still get fresh lines even though its been the most popular Freeriders choice these past few days.

Craig in the deep stuff - Val Veni.

McNab cutting deep in the Dolonne Canyon.

And so concludes another great week!

Its been great riding with Dave, Callum and Craig pictured above at our end of week awards ceremony, well done lads!

I've Been slacking on my squats and leg work this week as after 4 weeks of full on riding my legs are starting to feel the burn a little. Unfortunately I've forgone my day off tomorrow as I've been asked to guide a Heli drop up at Trient which should be good with all this new snow.

All is good and a new week begins, this week we've got a BC Freeride course, another BC Advanced and an Off Piste Tech clinic.

We've got a few places left on a couple of BC Intro's later in the season and could take a couple more on the BC Summits week if anyone fancies trying to climb and ride Mont Blanc in April.

Apart from that we're pretty much booked up so if you fancy getting out or need any info for the future contact Mel through the McNab web site.

Superstar X Games performer the one and only Jenny Jones was round here last night as she is now back in Europe after spending most of the season up to now over in the States winning stuff. She's looking well and very focused so watch out for more from the Jones in the closing months of the season.

One final thing, the ledgendary action hero Tim Emmet is doing a lecture tour around Britain this month which will no doubt be amazing so look out for his dates at www.speakersfromtheedge.com

All good and still working hard!

Neil.

More fun in the mountains.

Just had another great couple of days.

Monday was bad weather in Chamonix but Italy was looking good so we did a quick Glacier Toule off the Helbronner, had a Pizza lunch and then followed it up with a trip up the Arp in Courmayeur and a great powder run down into the Val Veni.

Whilst the Chamonix valley was shoruded in mist this was the view from the top of the Valley Blanche today. (McNab ready to drop in!)

Tuesday (today) again the Chamonix valley was shourded in mist and all looked gloomy except for those that checked out the web cams early on and saw that the Tops where in bright sunlight and the Midi was covered in perfect untracked powder after the snowfalls on Monday.

Another great run down the variant I found last week linking the Petite Envers descent to the Vrai Valley Blanche with some real nice turns for all. We then hiked up from below the Giant Icefall up the Periades in a simillar vein to last Fridays trip but this time as we were a little earlier we hiked a bit higher up towards the Aig du Tacul and rode down past the Chandelle.

Hiking up the Periades under the Dent du Geant.

All our previous tracks had filled in with a good 15cm of super light powder lying on top of what was there last week which made it fun for all.

We scored a super nice line the whole way down, some of the best turns of the season, man you could dig deep in there I was pushing through the back as hard as I could throwing some real roosters and then diving back through them. It felt amazing yet again!

Here's a few shots of the team in action so check them out.

Whilst the rest of Chamonix are stuck in the clouds Dave is in powder heaven!

Callum digging deep in the Periades.

Craig mixing it up as Dave charges in the background, fresh lines for all.

More snow coming in tomorrow late afternoon so hopefully there's time to squeeze a quick tour in in the morning.

Can't hardly wait for some more!

Neil.

Great days and new snow on the way!

Finished last week with a great run in the Valley Blanche which was surprisingly still good down the Petite Envers followed by a quick hike up the Periades for yet again another perfectly untracked powder descent!

A great week yet again and another on the way with new snow forecast for mid week!

I have another BC Advanced group, regulars Callum (who I climbed with out here a couple of summers ago), Craig (famous from the abs bag scene on the Krasnaya Polyiana vid) and David Blackadder all three who ride well and are up for anything so it should be good.

The weather is a little off at the moment and the snow has got a little heavy low down with the temperature rise. Its forecast to get colder with snow down in the Valley on Wednesday, Courmayeur is getting some more snow aswell so the possibilities are building again on both sides of the Mont Blanc Massif.

Had a good day today with a Rognon Glacier descent off Top Tickets (Grandes Montets), a run down Lavancher right down to the village and then a Possettes Couloir at Le Tour to finish off, not bad for a warm up day!

There was a 'The North Face' freeski comp here in Chamonix this weekend (for 12 to 18 year olds, some real rippers in the making) and so stopped in to have a chat with the boss at the bottom of the course. It looked tricky with flat light making the going pretty hard but the kids where still ripping it up.

Not sure what we'll do tomorrow, see what the weather gives us but maybe a Grandes Autannes if its not to bad.

Interesting comments about the book only suiting Goofy riders, if you're regular and find it confusing you could try watching it in the mirror?

An idea put to me by one of the team last week and not such a bad one I might add!

We have a BC Voyager course running in Andermatt this week with Ralf and a BC Intro custom group of Skiers and Snowboarders with Seb.

All good over here, hope you're getting your fill!

Neil.