The Order of The Phils

Yesterday Natalie and i skied in the late afternoon.  The snow was slushy, crusty and icy because the temperatures have simply soared in the last few days.  It was +16C at Prodains yesterday.

My legs didn't feel like cooperating and, with the now very late sunsets, it's certainly seemingly like they're closing the resort too early.  In December we were skiing home in the dark, but yesterday the sun was still high when they were hurrying everyone off the mountain.

Natalie on the Coupe de Monde.

Since we'd parked at Prodains, we skied down the Coupe de Monde to get home where we came across two French children, at about 2300m, struggling to put their skis on.  They were clearly in distress because it was late and they were on a steep black run and far from home.  Natalie and i helped them into their skis and, in my very poor French, since their English extended only to "yes" and "thank you", i asked them if they knew where they were going.  "Oui!", came the reply, so, once they'd got their ancient skis back on, off they went.

We were suspicious so we lagged behind and their technique certainly didn't match up to the slope they were on.  We caught up with them at the point where the Coupe de Monde splits to become the Arete des Intrets.  This is a tricky intersection because the Arete looks easier from the top but it quickly, deceptively, turns into an extremely steep black mogul field and the children obviously didn't know where to go.

This time i learned my lesson and asked them where they wanted to go, and not if they knew where they were going.  There is a very important distinction.  They were trying to get to Avoriaz, which was impossible at that time of day because the lifts had all shut.  They were from Thonon and their family was waiting for them in Avoriaz.  We suggested that they follow us down to Les Prodains in the hope that the Avoriaz cable-car was still running.

So we skied down with them sandwiched between us.  What they lacked in style and technique they certainly made up for in pure speed.  This is perhaps where French driving style originates?  That must be the fastest we've ever completed the Coupe de Monde.  i suspect the adrenaline was pumping at the prospect of them being lost on the mountain so that probably helped them down too.

We were both very happy to see them safely on the Avoriaz cable-car, although a bit puzzled as to why they'd be out on a black run so late in the day with no parental supervision.

Can an independent body please decide if we deserve to be candidates for the Order of The Phils for this?  The Order was created by Siobhan for skiers helping other skiers in distress.  Natalie and Siobhan are already seconded candidates awaiting inclusion and The Phils themselves the only current members of The Order. 

Maybe i have to do more than just this to be considered but situations like this don't arise every day so you have to make the most of it.  i have considered putting other skiers (preferably boarders) in distress and then helping them out, but that doesn't seem particularly sporting.

Chapelle d'Abondance

Today we finished the Portes du Soleil.  That is to say that, finally, we have now skied all of the resorts that make up the giant mega-resort.  The last resort was Chapelle d'Abondance and the reason we hadn't skied it before is because it's only linked by bus from the Torgon area and is thus very difficult to get to from where we are.

Instead of skiing there via Plaine Dranse and taking busses we drove there, giving us more time to explore the area itself.

What a pleasant surprise we got.  It's actually an extremely pretty resort.  It's very heavily treed.  There was almost nobody there and all the runs are easy cruisers giving great views of the Vallee d'Abondance.  If you want an easy day's skiing for the whole family or beginners, this is probably the ideal area.  Having said that, while it's definitely worth a visit, Natalie skied the entire resort in less than an hour, including traveling what must be one of the longest draglifts in the world.  The fact that it's so small and so far away from the rest of the Portes du Soleil, i suspect, probably limits this resort to a locals-only area - which is not a bad thing.

We stopped for lunch on a rock in the middle of a red piste and watched the world, what little there was of it in this quietly underpopulated resort, go by.  It was so warm i was down to a t shirt in another desperate attempt to rid myself of my ski tan.

 

It was such a warm day i was skiing sans helmet and gloves, feeling the wind in my increasingly unruly hair.

Re-re-match

i thought this deserved a post of it's own, rather than ashamedly hiding it at the bottom of another.

i suppose i have to report this.  Embarrassing as it is.  After our Swiss adventures yesterday we hurried back though Super Chatel and, purely since we were up there, i suggested a re-re-match.

The first run down was a total shambles and this time i have a genuine excuse for losing.  Again.  i was wearing a backpack and as a tucked down into the schuss the frame of the backpack pushed the back of my helmet up and thus down over my eyes, blinding me.  Once i'd corrected this i was totally off balance and had a high-speed, fairly disturbing wobble which i just managed to correct before the finish giving me a speed of only 58kph.  Natalie zoomed down behind me (and in the above photo) and posted a 62kph. Clearly, this result does not count given my equipment failure.

Anyway, we had to get back home for a meeting and time was tight but nevertheless i was adamant of a re-re-re-match.  Natalie consented and back up we went.

This time Natalie took the backpack and skied down first.  Usually i go first but this time, determined to make some kind of change that might affect the result, Natalie set off ahead of me.

Once Natalie was in position with the camera, because obviously, i wanted to film my victory, i athletically launched myself down the slope.  It was a perfect start and i tucked into a tight schuss worthy of Bode Miller himself.

After sliding to the finish, confident of stunning success i eagerly checked the scoreboard to find a speed of 62kph.  Had Natalie posted a slower time that last time?  Was i about to taste sweet victory?  No!  Of course not!  Natalie, obviously, even hampered with a helmet-obscuring backpack, had posted a 66kph.

Officially now, i give up!  The speedtrap system in Chatel is clearly rigged.  Also, i think my salopettes are really non-aerodynamic and my helmet has more vents than Natalie's.  It's so bad i might as well be skiing sideways.  Somehow, i just know Natalie is cheating.  i don't know how, but she is.

Couloir

Yesterday took ourselves on a Swiss tour.  My personal view is that we've now had the last good snow of the season and so the time was ripe to take in all the lower lying runs while they are still fresh.

As usual the day started with me saying that i wanted an "easy ski".  Somehow this never happens.  Our first run of the day was an alternate route down the Snowcross Brocheaux.  Phil will be happy to know that it was a lot better this time around given the new snowfall, but it was extremely heavy and the narrow gully we came down was tricky to navigate.

After that we ascended the Mossette chairlift with a view to skiing down Sim's Gully.  This was the view from the top of Sim's Gully with the Dents du Midi off to the left in the background.  Please now take a moment to appreciate this photo.  It took me a very very long time to take it because once i'd got the camera out and Natalie was in position a man and his daughter arrived and stood pondering the drop for a good ten minutes, thoroughly ruining my shot.

Once they'd realised that, in fact, they really did not want to ski down this dark black slope, de-skied, and walked back to safety, another seventy million muggles arrived and approximately 70 percent of them made the same decision as the first two.

Eventually i got a clear shot and the above photo, i think you'll agree, was worth the (exasperating) wait.  It was actually quite amusing to see groups of people ski to the edge of the run, look at it for quite a while, and then turn around and head back away from it as inconspicuously as possible.  Sim's Gully is not for the faint of heart.  This shot, below, i took from the run that leads onto Sim's gully.  i've lined the horizon up with the base of the camera again to try to convey the steepness.  Just over the fake horizon is rather a large cliff.  Lucky we didn't trying skiing around it.

Having said all this, we didn't actually end up skiing Sim's Gully, instead we skied, by far, the steepest slope of our ski careers.  No seriously.  We both has vertigo on it and it makes the Swiss Wall look like an M25 access ramp.  We traversed across the top of Sim's Gully, across the next couloir, and then into the 3rd Couloir, which i've named the Davies Couloir.  Why?  Because i can.  This is it:

Note that i, from only about 5m below Natalie, you can clearly see the underside of both of her skis.  Couloir comes from the French for "corridor" and, as you can see, it's a bowl-shaped narrow fissure formed between two steep ice-cliffs.  Besides the steepness, which i'd say is at least 10 to 20 degrees steeper than the Swiss Wall or even Sim's Gully itself, it's also very narrow - only about 5m of turning space.  Couple this with extremely sticky, heavy, choppy snow and it was a pretty hair-raising experience.  Well, it would have been if my hair wasn't plastered to my head with sweat on the inside of my helmet.

It didn't help that, once we were committed to the route, we noticed the ominous Cross at the top and saw that this couloir, the Davies Couloir,  had been roped off to prevent people skiing it.

This is Natalie once we were out of the couloir.  The Davies Couloir is directly above and slightly to the left of Natalie's helmet just under the left shoulder of Pointe de Mossette (the peak in the background).  You really don't get a sense of the steepness or narrowness of these couloirs from this photo, but take it from me, it was steep and tight.  Sim's Gully is the one directly to the left and below the chairlift on the right of the photo.  Sim's Gully is actually an unpisted black run.  The couloir to the left of the Davies Couloir is a Swiss yellow run, with the same difficultly rating as the Wall.

Anyway, i'm quite sure you're bored of hearing about this run by now, so here's some other news.  It's not my country but i feel empowered to name the terrain as i see fit.  As promised,  Siobhan, i've picked out two peaks to be named after The Phils.  May i present The Phils - the two rightmost peaks in the Dents du Midi as seen from the French side.  i hope they approve.

A kind Frenchman, who must have been some cool Boarder being filmed took this fabulous photo of us in Switzerland.  This could well be my favourite photo of all time.

This was only the second run of the day!  We completed the route off-piste down to Les Crosets where we found a superb gully on the way down.  Phillie would love this part of the run.  It was so good,  i took this video of it:

After this we skied down to Morgins and then headed back over Super Chatel.  i think i've bored you enough so far with this post so: To Be Continued.

New Trails

Did i mention yet how utterly huge the Portes du Soleil is.  Two days ago we finally got around to skiing the right-hand-side of the Col du Bassachaux as seen from the Chaux Fleurie chairlift.  It's a great run with some extreme steeps in places, combined with some tight canyon navigation further down.  Best of all, there's at least three different ways down it.  This is the view from about halfway down, giving a unique perspective on the village of Lindarets.

Natalie on the hills above Lindarets.

I think these kinds of new trails are what is pushing me to want to take up Randonee.  Randonee involves fitting skins (not real) to the underside of the skis to prevent them sliding in snow and articulating bindings which allow the heel to lift off the ski.  This means you can climb just about anywhere on the mountain and ski down places you could never get to from a chairlift.

 Ian wishing he could climb that mountain and ski down the other side to Plaine Dranse.

Circuit Roc d'Enfer

Today Natalie and i finally got a chance to ski the Roc d'Enfer Circuit.  The Circuit starts at about 1750m and finishes at around 900m.  It's only the last kilometer of the Circuit that really suffers from a lack of snow but today, with a week's worth of continuous low-lying snowfall and bright sunshine, we figured it was our best chance to try it.  Happily it was Ouvert and we completed the 20 stunning kilometers of tree-lined pistes that make up the Circuit in just under an hour, stopping many times for photos.

Natalie and le Roc d'Enfer.  The astute reader will recognise this mountain as the very same that appears in the stunning sunset photos we took of it from the other side from Avoriaz.

The route consists of two very long pistes (at least 8km each) connected by a long chairlift from the Bellevaux ski area and a very steep drag-lift.  The great thing about the run is that it's totally isolated: you take one chair and one drag, and the rest of the time you're in a secluded, heavily treed valley with no sounds of metal grinding on steel cables to disturb the peace.

Natalie and the start of the Circuit Roc d'Enfer.

We shared the pistes with a grand total of about 15 other skiers which just adds to the tranquility of the area.  i was quite surprised,  this year, to find that the Roc d'Enfer now has it's own ski pass which is outside the Portes du Soleil.  i don't understand the politics, but surely it would be better for the tourist and attract more skiers, and therefore cash, to the area if it was all under one pass.

 

Natalie and the aforementioned tranquil valley that forms part of the Circuit Roc d'Enfer.

Even with the recent heavy snowfall, the last hundred meters of the Circuit was unskiable and sections of the piste lower down were a smidgen gravelly (i checked and there is such a word).

Ian and la Grande Terche.  Here wearing sunglasses in a desperate attempt to rid himself of an embarrassing ski tan.  He is not convinced that this is working.

After skiing the Roc, we played around in the Grande Terche back area itself where we managed to find a bit of soft powder in amongst the heavy crust that has now formed.

Where'd Everybody Go?

It's taken us a full day to recover from our 11 consecutive full days of skiing and still my quads are aching.  This may partially be caused by, at one point in our adventures, having to walk back up the steepest part of a red run in Switzerland to add moral support to some our our flagging party members.

Of course, it didn't help that yesterday, when it was back to just the two of us again, we went out powder-skiing on Fornet.  i've not seen the resort so empty since December and there were no tracks on Fornet before we got there.  The powder was ridiculously deep and quite heavy and, again, we got stuck in a whiteout.

Natalie looking awesome as usual in Morzine.

The family-members who ignored the warning in the Into the Void entry will be presently surprised that i've really learned my lesson this time, and, although we had to practically walk down the last half-kilometer of the Fornet Snowcross in thigh-deep powder, i managed not to take us off any cliffs. 

i also learned a cool trick for determining what lies in front of you.  You take a handful of snow and throw it out ahead of you.  Then you wait until you can make out the slight contrast caused by the now slightly ruffled snow ahead and this tells you how steep the slope is,  if there is indeed a slope there in the first place, and not a huge cliff.

The apartment is recovering with a 66% drop in numbers and even the weather seems to have calmed down.  i did feel sorry for Andrew who had his first snow-driving experience in the worst storm of the Winter (although technically, it was Spring at the time).

The roads were so bad the ploughs couldn't clear them fast enough causing huge, ice-compacted ridges to form in the center of the lanes which our car would just bounce over, usually sideways.

It was absolutely fantastic skiing with The Phils and Siobhan again this year.  Phil himself is really coming along and i feel certain he'll be able to tackle Proclou by next season.  We named a new canyon we found in Plaine Dranse Phillie's Canyon, and Siobhan, myself, and Natalie have decided that The Phils deserve their own mountain named after them.

i think two of the Dents du Midi would be suitable and i'll pick two out for them next time the Dents come out of the clouds.  We also named the tree runs housing The Stash (man) and Les Tannes as Forêt du Natalie.

Siobhan also created The Order of The Phils to be awarded to skiers with extreme patience in teaching new skiers the Lore of the Mountains.  i nominate Siobhan and Natalie as the first new members of this Order.  i still can't believe how much time and effort The Phils have put into my and Natalie's ski career and how mind-numbingly bored they must have been on our first few weeks skiing.

Our newest skiing charges handled the week incredibly well.  Celeste and Leena went from being unable to stand up on day one to just about getting parallel by day eight with Celeste getting really good at the sliding stop and Leena zooting down a steep red as though it wasn't there.  She even went off piste on it, although that may not have been entirely intentional.  By the last run of the day Leena was comparing air-time with Andrew on the bumps above Avoriaz.

Jonathan ripping up the piste in Morzine.

And then there was Jonathan.  Can you say "Natural"?  Jonathan's second turn of his first day was parallel.  i'm not kidding.  He has great natural balance, wasn't afraid of getting up a bit of speed, and handled an 8km steep red on day three of his ski-career.  Best of all he nearly wiped-out a few muggles along the way for extra credit.  i'm so proud.

Sadly for us, it's two weeks to go until we leave the Alps for a short sprint around Europe and then South Africa.  It's official, no matter how much time we spend here, we never want to leave.  i love these Mountains.