The Swiss Wall: Summer Edition

Every ski resort seems to have at least one feature which makes it (in)famous. For the Portes du Soleil this has to be the Swiss Wall. The Swiss Wall is an itinerary route from France at the top of the Col de Chavanette which you access at the top of the Fornet valley down into Switzerland (although I think the top of the Col is actually technically in Switzerland as well) at the beginning of the classic blue cruiser: Ripailles. This links you up with the Les Crozets ski area.

It has a reputation for being dangerous and there are various rumours that several people a year kill themselves on it. As far as I can tell, this is total nonsense (although i do know of deaths on The Wall, but not in the "Lemming-like droves of people hurling themselves onto the rock-hard moguls" that the hype would have you believe). If the run was that dangerous the Pisteurs would simply close it down or mark is as out-of-bounds. I'm pretty sure though, given the extremely wide variation in skill level of people i've seen skiing it, that many people do hurt themselves on it - but this is true of any run if you're going too fast for the conditions or the slope is better than you.

Last year we witnessed an English mother and (we presume) her daughter who can't have been more than 10-years old. The mother was screaming at the child to make a turn and get down the mountain. This was at the very top, the most scary part where it's probably 45 degrees. There were huge moguls like normal. The mother was probably 25m further downslope from the child screaming (angry screaming) to get a move on. When the child finally made a turn, fell, and slid down face first probably 15m bouncing over the moguls, the mother simply said sarcastically: "Well that's one way to do it".

The person should have had her lift pass taken away. It's really quite unpleasant when you see parents yelling at their kids on a ski holiday (this was not the first time). The worst part was that when the mother herself made her next turn it was clear that she had no idea how to ski herself. Neither of them should have been on that slope. I heartily recommend that you ski it the first time with someone who has done it before and can show you the way. I also recommend that you don't take young children down it. You do ski children skiing it, but generally you can tell that these children live here and probably first donned a pair of skis aged 2. i.e. better skiers aged 7 that I will ever be.

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about the Wall itself, not crazy people skiing it.

Natalie at the top of the Swiss Wall showing off the Dents du Midi

This summer Natalie and I walked up the Col de Chavanette to take a look at it without snow. I thought my keen and massive audience would like to see how it looks in the summer. While out walking in the summer i often ponder various slopes, mentally rating them from "totally skiable" (meaning i probably couldn't ski it) to "definitely skiable" (meaning i would try to ski it and fail miserably).

This is the very edge of the precipice, looking down on what would normally be huge moguls.

So what is The Wall like in the summer? It is very steep - you can't walk straight down it , but I think it would distress people dreaming of one day saying, as I proudly did several years ago, that they finally skied the Swiss Wall, that in the summer cows graze on it and that our dogs ran up and down it like it was any other playing field. Worse, there's a track you could probably drive up on in a Fiat Panda - ok maybe a quad-bike.

Looking back up to the top from skier's right. In the second shot (which you can click on) you can see me dangling my pole to give you an idea of the steepness. I bet some very clever person can determine from the aspect and resolution the inclination of the slope... and post it as a comment! I tried it with an on-screen protractor and got about 42 degrees. i.e. Steep.

I tried to take photos to allow me to actually measure the angle, but i think the ground inclination is definitely 40 - 45 degrees at the top, as previously stated. 50 - 55 may be pushing it. However, in the Winter it is covered in huge moguls which definitely change your skiing inclination. There are also massive boulders and the jeep-track i mentioned earlier cuts deeply into the hillside making 2-3m vertical drop-offs in some places.

Here i've lined the base of the camera up with the slope to try and convey the steepness (i think we need a word like stepth in the english language).

We scrambled all over the top of the wall looking for good photo opportunities. This one is taken from slightly further over to skier's left and i'm wandering down to take a closer look at the jeep tracks.

This next photo is taken from the edge of the lip at the top. This is the part where people normally chicken out. Ok, that's not very nice and not at all in line with my rant about unsuitable skiers skiing it. 

*Ahem*, this then, is where sensible people who know their own ability make the decision to go or not to go. The nasty thing about the wall is that you can't see it until you're on it. The crazy-bad-skier-mother who was screaming at her child told the child that she was "just" afraid and that she could ski it. Fear and confidence are the only things holding people back with their sking. This moron-bad-mother-skier didn't seem to get the fact that the fear was the problem, and that she wasn't doing much to help her daughter not be afraid.





And since the dogs did not stay still long enough for me to prove that they were bounding all over the Swiss Wall like it was a flat meadow, here they are:





Scarlett on the left, Runa on skiers right. Dents du Midi wouldn't get out the shot.


And finally. This is the last sign you'll see in France before attempting The Wall.





See you on it this season!