Hill and I were lucky to be invited to our friend Olivier's family house in Briançon last weekend for a couple days of schussing and merriment. The two main things going for us were great people and good weather; less on our side were the lack of snow (this was before the week+ of dumping happened) and instability due to high winds and squirrelly thin snow pack temperature gradients. Also for me it was the first real test of my ankle in ski boots post pin removal.
Strategically speaking I'd say we did a nice job, fully capitalizing on points one and two with fondue and wine, and some quality time hanging out by the fire as well as on the skin track. We also managed to keep dancing with the dragon to a minimum, given that we stuck to slopes well under 30° (there were actually a number of accidents that weekend, so I definitely don't regret taking it easy). And finally, it turns out that doing the backseat noodle through 20° powder is pretty low stress on the old ankle. Mostly I was just psyched to be back out there with Hill and friends with skis on my feet, shuffling around in some spectacular terrain...
 |
| Skinning out of the Névache valley, with the Cerces range as backdrop. |
 |
| Sometimes 15° is all you need. |
 |
| Traversing slopes below the Grand Arias (2869m). Psyched to come back for the upper couloir in more stable conditions... note the work of the evil W on the textured snow surface. |
 |
| Getting blasted at the col. |
 |
| Enjoying some low angle bangle jangle through the larch trees. |
 |
| Day 2 with Thibaut and Matthias, skinning up into a cirque to the southeast of Briançon near the Grand Peygu. |
No comments:
Post a Comment