Dent du Villard West face

With a day off before the half term chaos begins, a phone call from Will scuppered my plans of an easy day watching the rugby...
An early start saw us scoping through binoculars for a line down a local bit of esoterica - the West face of the Dent du Villard. Rarely skied (and not often in condition), we had some first-hand information from a friend who had been up the week before and found great conditions. The whole of the West face is lined with narrow gullies, the problem is that only a few of them are actually skiable all the way down, and once committed there is generally no swapping of gullies...

The West face - our chosen line just right of centre:



Agreat ski down the hidden playground brought us out at the Lac Rosiere and the start of the uphill effort:



The skin up follows the summer path - a real winter wonderland with snow-covered trees, but the occasional scabby passage across steep gully walls to keep everyone on their toes:




The world's best alpinists??
Chamois tracks across 80º powder over loose, chossy rock... incredible!:



The final slopes below the summit:



Table d'orientation at the top:



Will on the summit:



Great looking slopes, shame they finish in unskiable dense forest!:




A novel view of the Courchevel 1650 slopes:



Looking over to Courchevel 1850:



Starting the descent from the summit:



The first real turns, bottomless perfect powder...:



The gully line gave great skiing, though care was neede as the left bank was soft but 'sluffy', with the right bank starting to get a bit crusty in the sun... great fun all the way down though!:










Finally a bit of combat skiing took us back out at the Lac Rosiere, tired but happy...:



From La Jairraz a secret clearing through the trees gave untracked powder down to the last 50m into Les Moulins...
Skis off 30 seconds from home, the Dent du Villard in the distance 1500m higher: