Saturday, February 28, 2009

A Recipe for the best skiing on the Planet




You need four highly motivated members of the Gibou Club Peter Folkman, David Freud, Peter Ward and Ian Ansell. You need a helicopter provided by Air Glacier and a support driver Roy.
Then you need good weather and fresh snow.
We had a warm up day skiing exceptional snow off the back of Combloux then we started the heliskiing with a drop on the Trient Plateau and skied all the way down the Combe Orny to Orsieres. 2280 vertical meters in powder all the way to the waiting helicopter. We did it again and took an even better line than the first time.
Next day we skied from the summit of the Petit Combin down the north east face [Les Follats] to meet Roy and the mini bus. In the after noon we flew to Pigne d'arrolla and skied past the Vignettes Refuge to the village of Arolla .
Day 3 We had two flights to the Pigne. On the second we managed to fiddle our way into the Tsijore Nouve one of the most sought after ski descents in the Alps. It was in exceptional condition.
On our final day we did it again although not before two failed attempts to land due to mist and high wind. Air Glacier even drove the fuel tanker from Sion so that the Lama could fly on very little fuel and save weight.
For our last run we flew back to the plateau du Trient and then skied into the village of Trient where Roy was again there to meet uswith the mini bus

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