Maurienne Magic 2018

This week I have been back to one of my favourite haunts, the Haute Maurienne, running my annual Steep Coaching & Adventures week for members of the Eagle Ski Club.

Snowfall last weekend set us up for a great start to the week, though the forecast initially looked quite variable for the week. As it turns out we have had mostly really good visibility and snow, with today ranking right up with the best days of all time, with a classic 1300m descent to the road at Bonneval with knee-deep cold powder all the way!

One more day to go and the forecast is good - here's hoping for another great day!

Mid-January round-up: snow, snow, snow...

It has been 3 weeks weeks since my last post and some planned posts have fallen by the wayside temporarily - work and family oblige...

As most people are probably aware we are experiencing a one-in-20 year at the moment snowfall-wise, with huge depths of snow up in the mountains - the Courchevel couloirs are more filled in and banked out than I have seen them in 19 winters working here, and more snow is falling today (though the rain/snow limit is quite high :-(

2018 kicked off in good style, with a couple of days coaching Mike and Sarah (back from a knee injury last winter!), then it was straight over to Chamonix for my regular week with Tim, John and Phil:

This week I have been back in Courchevel with one of my longest-standing groups of clients - the weather has been pretty wild but there are few better places to be when it is like this as there is lots of sheltered tree skiing and even some high quality 'bus runs' if the lifts aren't working...

A quick, high quality tree run on the way home:

More trees:

And powder:

More powder:

Ewan exploring the boundaries of balance:

The Magic Line

A quick blast down the 'Magic Line' yesterday.

I have been skiing this line for a good few years now and still have yet to see another set of tracks in here (that should jinx it now I've said that...) particularly since my ski buddy and esoterica-explorer-in-chief Will passed away a few years ago, although I have started taking the precaution of skinning 5 minutes to get in rather than taking the gravity-assisted route to avoid 'track-followers'!

Magic Line 28 12 2017 from Simon Christy on Vimeo.

This is a perfect line for bad weather days - trees all the way for visibility, far enough away from the main ridges to reduce worry of wind loading at the top, though still steep enough that care is needed - perfect spacing in the clearing as long as no more than 4 or 5 people are skiing it...

It is currently quite cold (-10/-15C) keeping the powder nice and fluffy, and with more snow on the way the next week or two should be great!

Off Piste Perfection Tarentaise

This week I was running the Off Piste Perfection coaching week, a collaboration between www.offpisteskiing.com and Jagged Globe.

Based in Bourg St Maurice this is a mobile week of off piste coaching, and with les Arcs, La Plagne, La Rosiere/La Thuile, St Foy and Val D'Isere/Tignes all within easy reach there is great potential to follow the good snow, weather conditions and pick the best terrain to develop everyone's skiing.

Sunday was forecast snowy and windy, and there are few better places than Les Arcs in those conditions, with lots of open easy tree-skiing to kick the week off:

Stuart checking out some ski heritage at lunchtime in Arcs 1600:

On Monday the forecast was still cloudy and snowy so we headed for the trees of St Foy. Sadly the Marquise and Aiguille chairs didn't open (partly due to a problem with the Gazex avalanche control systems! There is still lots of potential low down though, and we had a very productive day mixing technique and tactics on the lower meadows and tree lines:

On Tuesday we went back to Les Arcs and had a great day in the trees around 1950 and 2000, taking the tactics developed earlier in the week on to steeper angles:

Wednesday saw us heading up to Val D'Isere to make use of the steep terrain for a technically-focussed day which saw everyone making some great changes to their skiing.

The weather forecast was good for Thursday and we headed back up to Les Arcs with a view to finding some untracked snow away from the masses:

Friday was the last day for the team and we chose St Foy as the venue to find some testing snow and slopes to put the week's progress into action:

Thanks to Stuart, Ann and Elaine for their great company through the week, and willingness to make the most of the tricky weather in the first few days!!

Chamonix Off Piste Coaching

Last week I was based in Chamonix, running 5 days of off piste coaching for Tim, John and Phil. With snow very thin on the ground (or granite) in Chamonix we played the 'lateral thinking' cards and managed to find some reasonable snow to ski on every day with a short drive...

The guys all made great progress throughout the week, with some big changes put in place:

Bonus bumper powder day on the Friday to reward the gang for their perseverance!

Overall conditions remain thin, despite the big fall of snow over the weekend we are effectively now running on a mid-December style snowpack - lots more needed to bring us back towards normal - areas with grass or glacier underneath will still be a good bet until the next snowfall!

Steep Vanoise 2015 - part 1

This week sees the return of the ever-popular Steep Vanoise course. So far we have been based in the 3 Valleys and mostly making use of the lift systems while getting the team up to speed and testing them out in varying snow conditions. With the current high pressure and spring-like weather there has been spring snow to be found on sunny aspects with the right timing, and chalky snow and even some old powder still to be found on shadier slopes:

The karma bank

Sometimes you have to do your time...

Yesterday was properly 'Scottish' up in Courchevel - wild winds, wet snowfall and only a handful of hardy souls out. Andy & Brian braved it through the day with me and acutally we scored a couple of really nice runs off the Saulire when visibility cleared (before they shut it because of the wind...!), but today was payback day - blue skies and powder from start to finish:

Caution is needed though - with the wild winds and varying temperatures the snowpack has had alot of big changes recently and will have plenty of traps - as evidenced by the two skier-triggered slides in Orelle today. It was also quite surprising to see how tracks appeared almost everywhere it was possible to get to (plus ça change...) despite some obvious releases triggered by the PIDA; not to mention the young English skier who got herself cragfast above some steep rocky terrain in Rocher de L'Ombre despite the clear blue skies and perfect visibility. Oh and the number of skiers charging about the further reaches of the couloirs on their own without any visible avalanche kit... Oh yes and the groups led by instructors heading into potential avalanche terrain without any obvious avalanche safety kit (while the non-professional could simply be ignorant of the risk the pros should know better - particularly this winter!).
Maybe I'm just getting old and jaded...