Great snow in the Aiguille Rouge!

Well it snowed pretty good over the weekend and so we've been enjoying some more fresh lines here in the Chamonix valley with a BC Intro warm up day on the Grandes Montets that included a great run down the Lognans Glacier onto the Argentiere Glacier. The mountains were bathed in a mixture of sun and cloud and everynow and then a cloud bank would roll in and the visibility would drop to zero. All in all a good day though.

Yesterday we hit the Helbronner for a descent of the Glacier Toule which was coated in a deep layer of fresh powder at the top which quickly turned to a rideable but heavier snow as the sun melted it down and once again the cloud rolled in to make things a bit tricky for a while. We bailed over to Courmayeur for a quick one down into the Val Veni from the top of the Youla. This turned out to deliver the goods, the air had cooled a little, the avalanche risk had dropped after the heat of the day and the snow was still fresh, untracked and ours for the taking.

Today the weather turned to 100% sun and so we toured out in the Aiguille Rouge for a classic Crochue/Berard run. As the cloud had been hugging the Chamonix valley all of yesterday the snow out the back in the Aiguille Rouge had stayed cold and untouched. After a slow start we made good and steady progress. The snow was in great condition and although many people had beat us to it they had all taken the classic central descent leaving us with fresh lines for all.

This was a great day out, some great riding and a beautiful day out in the mountains.

I keep forgetting to take my camera so sorry no shots as yet this week. If the weather holds we might go for a Col du Passon tomorrow (my first of the season!) heading from the Grandes Montets over to the Tour Glacier finishing with a big descent in to Le Tour itself.

Could be good!

I'll let you know.

Laters,

Neil.

More Powder in Chamonix and a new article on line!

Its been snowing pretty continuously this week and yesterday after a few days off I joined the BC Intro group for some powder laps up at Flegere which was in amazing condition.

Lap after lap right off the lift.

A cloud cover kept the snow cold and sweet until white out conditions prevailed and most people bailed thinking the good times were over. We of course stuck it out hoping for one more good one and headed back up to be rewarded by blue skies once again and the mountain pretty much to our selves.

More snow due this weekend, the winter has returned!


A friend of mine, Mtn Guide, Neil Brodie (who some McNab BC riders might know from BC courses) has recently returned from a exploratory trip to search out and ski the powder delights of Iran. I have just posted his story and pics so check it out. 'The Iran story'


I have been considering Iran as a future destination for one of our "Voyager Expedition' trips and Neil B is very keen to get back there saying it was an amazing experience and has a great plan for a future trip.

Neil B's Iran trip will be on the program for next Feb so if you're interested in joining us on this journey into virtually unexplored territory then let us know and get your name down on the provisional list.

Conditions are looking good for next weeks BC Courses.

Still getting the fresh lines!

Neil.

Another big week!

Not posted any news for a few days as things have been really busy over here with Neil and Gillian out skiing and the Irish trio Brian, daragh and Mike on a BC week.

After a couple of days skiing I switched back to the board and did a few days with the BC group fitting in a quick Grands Autannes on which Mike fell, his flow bindings released on him and he managed to slice his knee open on his own edge.

I've seen people flip out of flow bindings 3 times now, a heel edge fall and both bindings release! Bit of a danger so if you're riding flows then watch out for it.

Anyway, I've been carrying my first aid kit with me all season and not used it so it was time to pull it out and fix Mike up. With a bone deep gash on his knee I managed to pull out everything I needed, cleaned it up and stuck him back together so that he could ride down. Good result!

He needed stitches and was unfortunately out for the rest of the week, Flo from the hotel Cri-stal took him out paragliding the next day. You just can't keep a good man down!

Meanwhile Gillian and Neil did some tech sessions with Seb and got stuck into improving their Skiing.

The rest of the week brought us a Pas du Chevre, a Petite Envers (Valley Blanche) and a final day on the Col du Beaugean which was great.

Daragh and Brian topping out on the Col du Beaugean.

Brian ripping it up on the Beaugean descent.

Daragh gets the good on the Beaugean.

And so another week ends and a new one begins!

I've a few days off this week as Ralf is running a BC Freeride (I'll tag along for a couple of days) and Keith is away with the Juniors in Laax on a Pre Brits training week.

Its been pretty cold the last few days with strong Northerly winds blowing through but spring conditions are prevailing for the moment. More snow has been forecast for mid week so we wait and see.

All is good,

Neil.

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.