Saturday, April 16, 2011

Lets do anything in the mountains other than ski

Just spent 6 great days with Francis Bridgeman and his extended family and friends. The skiing was limited to Grands Montets and it was mobbed. So I decided that the best thing to do was to show everybody how to do a crevasse rescue.
We did this on the top of Grands Montets.
The next day we went to Verbier in an attempt to find some different snow. It was crap. The visibility was nil the snow was firstly ice then slush interspersed with mud and a scattering of rocks.
Not unsurprisingly I suggested to Francis that we went rockclimbing. This proved to be a very good choice - we climbed the Via Cordia and the next day we climbed the Voie Caline.
Yesterday we went back to Les grands montets , not to ski but to learn how to use ice axe and crampons. The Grands Montets was mobbed and it wasn't possible to get to the top so we started with our ice axes on the piste. This seemed a much better option than using skis.
We then finished off the week with a mass ascent off the via Feratta above the plateau d'assey.

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