Monday, April 30, 2007

Le Mont Blanc 4810




14 years ago I promised to ski off the summit of Mt Blanc with Peter Folkman. I had confidently told him that we could get a helicopter to the top. When he arrived in Chamonix I told him he would have to walk. Which he did. Still conditions were not good enough to ski from the summit.
Today we took a helicopter to the Piton Italian and got dropped at 4200meters. Three hours climbing later we skied off the summit of Mt Blanc via the "Corridor route." We were back in Chamonix for 3.00pm

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Breche Puiseux 3432 m





Peter Folkman and I have had a good three days ski touring at altitude. We climbed the Col Du Argentiere. Yesterday we were in the Valley Blanche and climbed up to the col du Freshfield. We then spent the night in the Cosmique Hut. We started skiing this morning at 6.00am and climbed the amazing Breche Puiseux. Afterwhich we skied the magnificent Mt Mallet glacier to rejoin the mer de glace.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Grand St Bernard Monastery



So I have just come back from two of my favorite places in the alps. Bill Mills and Nigel Prescott and I climbed up to the Gd St Bernard Monastery.The next day we climbed MT Fourchon 2980 meters and again saw no one despite having perfect weather. After this trip we went up to the Velan mountain Hut where the food and wine was as good as ever. The next day we climbed over the ridge behind the Hut and then skied all the way back to the Super Grand St Bernard ski lift.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Seaton Girls win the Chamonix Race


The Chamonix club des sports had thier end of season race . Like her big sister at the same ageFlorence came first in her catergory. Andrea came third in her's

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Mrs Berg Climbs the Breithorn 4130m



We have had about 3 weeks of perfect weather. While this has been quite pleasant, it has been hot and the snow has started to disappear very quickly- forcing us higher and higher up the mountains.
Fiona and Reuben Berg and their daughter Rachael and I skied around Chamonix, then had a day in Les Contamines ski touring. We then did a ski tour in the valley blanche.
We then travelled to Zermatt. The high spot was an ascent of the Breithorn on skis. This was Fiona's first "4000 er" and the start of what promises to be bright montaineering future.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Domes de Miage 3673m




Chris Dovell and I are just back from a day of sensory overload. It started at 7.00am as we travelled through the Mt BlancTunnel to Courmayeur where we were due to rendezvous with a helicopter. Eventually the pilot arrived on his motor bike. He pushed the helicopter out of the hangar, checked the oil and then we jumped in and seven minutes later got dropped at the Col de Infranchissable. From there we skinned up to a higher col before putting our crampons on and climbing one of the worlds most iconic snow ridges to the summit of the Domes de Miage.
We then jumped on our skis and skied down the northface following the Armancette glacier . After exactly 2040m of vertical descent we ran out of snow and walked back to our pre- placed car. We were back in Chamonix by 2.00pm

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Easter Sunday Heli skiing


To day we skied the glacier de Grande. It was a month since I had last been there and conditions were very good. We had 1900 meter descent mostly in untracked powder.
It did get rather hot at the bottom and we had to walk out for about ten minutes.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Valley Blanche for very small people




I had a couple of days off so I got the chance to ski the Valley Blanche with Andrea who is eight years old. We did it last May but conditions were not quite so good this time and we had some difficult breakable crust to deal with plus a strong Foehn wind.
To day was Florence [six years old] turn to ski the Valley Blanche. The conditions were much better today so we decided to visit the Cosmique Hut. We did this using our ski touring skis. It was Florence first time on skins but despite being at over 3500 meters she zoomed along. Florence was hoping to see Lorance who is the guardian of the Cosmique Hut and more importantly she is the Mother of Florences best friend. But Lorance was not there so we had a cup of Hot Chocolate and then skied powder down to the bottom in under an hour.