Title: What I did today!
Date: 19/12/2011
This morning I headed up to the Grands Montets with my 2 clients and our splitboards, intention to maybe hike up the Bochard and ride Lavancher.
Strangely quiet in the morning, with only the storm chairs running due to massive amounts of snow up high.
We headed up the Marmottons chair and traversed over for a quick one through the dream Forrest, which I imagined would be tracked out from the past few days. Amazingly there wasn't a track in sight as we dropped in heading left and then straight down. We weren't worried about the hike out as we had the Splits so just kept going and the riding was amazing, no tracks and perfect super deep and light powder.
A quick change to splits and we hiked out of there, did a run in bounds which was pretty tracked and so headed over to see what was happening with the Bochard and Herse which we were informed would be shut for the day due to too much snow up high...Perfect!
A quick bite and change to up hill mode and we were on our way up the Herse Piste, quickly coming out of the cloud with the skies clearing overhead. About 1/3rd of the way up the piste came to an abrupt end and it became obvious why these lifts are not open. Massively deep snow with an old narrow cat track, which was obviously put in before the last big snowfall led the way onwards, all around us the Chamonix classics lay untouched, smooth and deep. To our right the Canadian bowl, totally untouched, a rare sight indeed! Above and left the Italian bowl and the front face of the Herse, also totally untouched.
It almost seemed a bit spooky to see these inbound classics in such a virgin state as we headed on upwards finally reaching the top lift station of the Herse after 1 and a half hours of hiking and in full sunlight.
A 5 minute lift ride or a 1hr 30min hike?
I'll take the hike everytime if it gives me the tranquility and solitude that we had up there, plus of course the fact that we now stood on top of some 1500m vertical untouched fresh and deep powder.
A quick change to ride mode and we're dropping in, I thought it might just be too deep, one of the those runs were you just can't turn and need to Mach it just to get down, but on dropping into the first turn I was pleasantly surprised to find out the powder was just perfect, super light and floaty and so we could just hammer it and play all the way down.
It's not often you get to ride the Grands Montets to your self. A special day for sure and a descent that must be up there in the 'best of' Catagory for sure.
More snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow...
Bring it on!
Strangely quiet in the morning, with only the storm chairs running due to massive amounts of snow up high.
We headed up the Marmottons chair and traversed over for a quick one through the dream Forrest, which I imagined would be tracked out from the past few days. Amazingly there wasn't a track in sight as we dropped in heading left and then straight down. We weren't worried about the hike out as we had the Splits so just kept going and the riding was amazing, no tracks and perfect super deep and light powder.
A quick change to splits and we hiked out of there, did a run in bounds which was pretty tracked and so headed over to see what was happening with the Bochard and Herse which we were informed would be shut for the day due to too much snow up high...Perfect!
A quick bite and change to up hill mode and we were on our way up the Herse Piste, quickly coming out of the cloud with the skies clearing overhead. About 1/3rd of the way up the piste came to an abrupt end and it became obvious why these lifts are not open. Massively deep snow with an old narrow cat track, which was obviously put in before the last big snowfall led the way onwards, all around us the Chamonix classics lay untouched, smooth and deep. To our right the Canadian bowl, totally untouched, a rare sight indeed! Above and left the Italian bowl and the front face of the Herse, also totally untouched.
It almost seemed a bit spooky to see these inbound classics in such a virgin state as we headed on upwards finally reaching the top lift station of the Herse after 1 and a half hours of hiking and in full sunlight.
A 5 minute lift ride or a 1hr 30min hike?
I'll take the hike everytime if it gives me the tranquility and solitude that we had up there, plus of course the fact that we now stood on top of some 1500m vertical untouched fresh and deep powder.
A quick change to ride mode and we're dropping in, I thought it might just be too deep, one of the those runs were you just can't turn and need to Mach it just to get down, but on dropping into the first turn I was pleasantly surprised to find out the powder was just perfect, super light and floaty and so we could just hammer it and play all the way down.
It's not often you get to ride the Grands Montets to your self. A special day for sure and a descent that must be up there in the 'best of' Catagory for sure.
More snow forecast for tonight and tomorrow...
Bring it on!
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