So Saturday, no plan for Sunday, call up the alpipathes to see what's going on. "Hector can you check few trips online...", and hour later, voila... "Ok guys I will go with you, at what time?...6:30am!... yeah yeah, I will be there." The plans calls for the SW couloir of some mountain (does it really make a difference what mountain I mention?), it is steep. There is a little apprehension, but if the snow is good, it is really not too bad.
Meet up at parking lot as planned, I decide I will sleep in the car to get more Z's. We drive, chain up, and get to our destination. Now from the approximation (c.f. 0_route.jpg, or what I recalled from the route) it is a long approach, but it is worth it. We finally got to the couloir and it an ascent with crampons for the slope is a little icy. It turns out that cramponing is more tiresome than climbing up with skis; plus, if you think about it, it is kind of weird going up in crampons what you are going to come down in skis, no? or at least that was my thought as I was going up.
At the summit, we have a picnic and wait for the sun to continue melting the couloir, but the stupid clouds move in and block the sun. No point in waiting longer and we start the descent which for me after getting into the comfort zone was very pleasant. The only downside, is that you can't really fool around to learn a bit, because there are three simple rules you should follow in the couloir:
- Do not fall
- Do not fall, in case you missed rule number 1
- If you do fall, stop yourself pronto, like Luc can show you.
Now two options present themselves for the return to the car: 1) climb up 200m to a small summit and descend the old pistes, or 2) try to keep descending and connect to the road. Lazyness and the fact that the snow on the pistes would be crappy, made us choose option numéro deux, but the bonus was skiing the couloir to its end. The downside is the freaking bushwacking forest-traversing skinning/deskinning that had to be done to get back to the car (see 0_route.jpg for an approximation). In the end we made it back (otherwise I would not be writting this).
Photos: H=Hector, Y=Yed, L=Luc
Skitour TR
Camptocamp TR.
Ski 4.1, 38-42 degrees over 500m. 1580m gain total for us.
J'aime bien tes commentaires sur la sortie aux Grands Moulins (don't forget the final 's' for "Moulins") ;o))
Finalement, Luc me disait que tu skiais mieux en pente raide qu'en pente douce, est-ce vrai ? ;o)))
Alex (03/29/2006)
I think the couloir warrants its 4.1 rating. It is a nice line but steep and narrow with the added problem of finding spring snow.
David (01/17/2007)
skitour topo
