Alpine Guides Blog

Night O - running round in circles in the dark..

Just home in the Uk for a few days family time, so squeezed in a local night orienteering event in yesterday evening at Adel woods in north Leeds -  I’ve been doing a few local league events this winter after a 20 year break from the sport.

Definitely not as quick anymore on the short races, but technique counts for everything in this sport - so been doing Ok with a close second in the first race, then 3 wins in the others.  Last night was probably the best result,  coming in 7 minutes clear – but there’s 6 races to count in the series and I’ve only done 4 - ie need to get more organised next winter!

Pyramide D'Oz

First outing of the season this Sunday, competing in the individual race at the Pyramide d’Oz and a good result too - 3rd overall and 1st Vet, so a trophy and a some goodies to show for it.  The race itself is on a good course, with some particularly knarly descents – especially the last one where we were treated to a 35 degree slope covered in crusty snow, layed on top of 50cm of soft snow, layed on top of rocks and bushes for over 500m - hmmm, lovely…

Cath and Simon (Nobby) Naylor were also racing – Cath having a great race  finishing 2nd woman and 1st Vet, so more prizes being won by Brits.

Ski touring above Le Chazelet

Just a few more pics from the second half of the week down here in La Grave – which included vistits to Serre Chevalier, Les Chazelets and the Col du Lauteret.  There’s still plenty of good snow around if you know where to go…

Here are a few pics from various personal trips over the past couple of years

Just a quick work update further to my last post a couple of weeks ago. From 3rd Jan I had a top week climbing around Cogne with Jim Bird. Over the first few days we climbed Patri, Cascade Lillaz and Tuborg, then on thurday we ramped it up and climbed the valleys mega classic – Repentance. It was in good shape with a featured blobby first pitch with plenty of rests, then a sustained but (reasonably) dry and fat top pitch. We finished the week with Lau Bij which was also in good shape.

Alastair MacColl came out for the weekend of  9-10 Jan in the middle of some pretty severe snowy weather (around 60cm over 1.5 days!). Cogne is a bit of a nightmare during heavy snow, due to the huge catchments above many of the routes, so after a snowy (but safe) Cacade Lillaz we bailed to Lys Balma in Gressoney.  This gave some brilliant steep ice clipping bolts for pro, with bolted lower offs, all with zero avalanche risk and a 2min approach – our kinda climbing! Cheers to Pete Benson for the tipoff – and more info at http://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=37160

Finally Margaret best joined me for a week back in Cogne, which we kicked off with avalanche paranoia and a trip to ‘Castello Incantato’. The Enchanted Castle is a brill spot – a twisting multi-branched cascade tucked away above Verres in the Aosta valley. Its only 15 mins from the car on a densely forested hillside, so quite safe and with a steady stroll off at the top. Great! Things seemed to settle down in Cogne, with several other guided teams out reporting little observed avalanche activity -  in the sustained low temps nothing was moving. Andy Perkins kindly put a track in to Lillaz Gully (cheers Andy) so that was our next objective, followed by Cascade Lillaz and Patri – all in great shape. Finally we finished with a change of scene and headed to Valsavaranche and the brilliant Rovenaud – this was in great condition and has a brilliant ambiance set in a deep gorge. All in all a top 2 weeks climbing, thanks for the great company and great days on the hill guys!

David Horwood  has just today finished 5 days guided by Jonny Baird, also around Cogne. They climbed Lillaz Gully, Candelabro Del Coyote, Patri Right  and Left, Lau Bij and Rovenaud – all still in great condition. The legendary Christophe Profit was at hand to take some photos of David on the top of Patri, so will get those on the blog shortly!

Thanks to Luca on UKC for his useful roundup of Italian ice conditions. Other useful sites for Euro ice conditions include www.gulliver.it, www.camptocamp.org, www.ice-fall.com, www.ohm-chamonix.com, www.cascades-infos.com

Rich

Current conditions around La Grave - fresh powder in the Queyras today

Just a quck round up of what’s going on down here in La Grave on the ski front:

 We had a fresh dump Saturday night/Sunday morning, which gave some good powder skiing yesterday at La Grave - the best snow being lower down in the trees, but also some good pitches in sheltered areas higher on the mountain. 

Today we ventured over to the Queyras day touring, where we enjoyed an 1100m  untracked powder run – so plenty of great snow over that side too!  A bit more snow due tommorrow, then forecast clear again Thur/Fri, so all set for another good week.

Another great day up on Buckden Pike this Friday - this time with Andy Benson.  We did the drop off the back, then found some lovely powder for a couple of laps above Walden Head,  before skinning up over the summit again and down for 3 laps of the great pitch above Buckden village till it got dark.

UK Ski Conditions Elsewhere:

Just a few useful snippets about other areas in the UK – the Lakes and Northern Pennines obviously have great snow cover, with Skiddaw and the Howgills being good choices.  There’s plenty of  snow in the Peak District, but without the base that there is on the hills further North and folk have also been out and about in the Brecon Beacons.  I did a ski traverse of Round Hill above Ilkley last night – straight line schussing on the descents, but good training close to home.  It’s been variously raining, sleeting and snowing overnight and this morning with a lot of fresh snow higher up – so looking like the final few days before the thaw arrives…

Allez retour on Brown Haw

It was still minus 9 late morning in Buckden yesterday as I set off on an amazing days skiing at the top end of Wharfedale – 2300m of skinning in total and the best days skiing  from home ever.  At the moment the snow cover is so good you can ski pretty much anywhere, including over the top of 5ft dry stone walls in places!

First I headed south up over the top of Old Cote Moor and down into Littondale, then back the same way to get the long descent back down to Buckden.  Next it was up Buckden Pike and down the North side to Walden Moor, then a quick allez retour up Brown Haw before skinning back over Buckden Pike and a great descent down to Buckden via a steep pitch above the village.

A quick drive down to Kettlewell left time for a final 500m skin up Great Whernside, then just 10mins from the summit back down to Kettlewell – there’s been another dump this morning, so get up there if you can!

Cascade di Patri - a Cogne classic.

Myself and Jim Bird are currently climbing out in Cogne. Very, very cold, but slightly warmer out of the valley bottom so leaving the car is the hardest part of the day! A good selection of the icefalls are in good shape including many of the classics such as Lillaz gully, Cascade Lillaz, Cold Couloir, Monday Money etc. Yesterday we warmed up on Patri which was fat and fun but busy, then today we climed Tuborg, which was in steep condition but with good quality ice where it mattered. All in all things are looking pretty good and its set cold for the rest of the week, so this is where we are stayin! Pics to follow.