Maurienne steep ski coaching & adventures

Last week I was back in the Maurienne valley running a "Steep Coaching & Adventures" week for the Eagle Ski Club.

We had a challenging week due to high temperatures in the first part of the week, but managed to find some good snow and challenging terrain every day. A huge thank you to Rob, Jude, Will, Adam and Nick for their great company throughout the week - lots of good skiing and some big improvements!

Val Cenis:

Bonneval:

Les Karellis:

Valfrejus:

Orelle - what an amazing day to finish on!:

Winter has (finally) started!

After a tough 3 weeks working with some very thin snow conditions winter 2016 appears to have finally kicked off!
Much caution is needed currently due to avalanche risk and a very thin or non-existant base, but there is some fun to be had out there in the right places.

I am currently in Chamonix, but with current conditions some lateral thinking has to be applied to find good skiing with low risk - yesterday was good:

So good we went back to the same place today, and it was even better!

Val D'Anniviers - Off Piste coaching (cont.)

The Val D'Anniviers came up with the goods again!

Alex styling it up:

The last time I was here was 7 years ago, with very similar snow conditions to this year, but once again Grimentz and Zinal did not disappoint.

With a couple of small snowfalls but reasonable visibility through the week our Off Piste Improvers coaching course was topped off by 40cm of powder and blue skies on Friday (albeit with -17C temperatures and a biting wind!).

Peter puts his new skills into action:

Peter, Alex, Paul, Chas, Phil and Steve all made great progress through the week, and we ticked off a couple of classic descents on the way, with great snow all the way to the Moiry Dam from Zinal and perfect powder down the Orzival valley.

The Weisshorn watching over our skiing:

Cool tree on the exit from Orzival:

A word on conditions:
Much caution is still needed as shady slopes still have the weak depth hoar and buried surface hoar layers from early in the season. Additionally Thursday night's snowfall came with wind first from the North, then swinging round to West/South-West. On Friday many small slabs and sluffs were evident, some natural, some skier/boarder-triggered, and lots had gone with the morning's avalanche control work (they were still throwing charges into places at 3pm!). Grimentz being a bit of a rock garden some care is still needed as many rocks are only just buried, though the classic routes and gully lines are starting to fill in well.

Somebody got a fright on Friday!:

The new cable car linking Grimentz to Zinal was still under testing last week, though allegedly was going to open yesterday - shame about the current state of the architecture - harking back to the best days of French concrete block construction - one assumes (hopes) some cladding will be coming shortly!

Some more powdery shots - Friday was just incredible - even at 3pm we were putting first tracks into completely untouched bowls - the beauty of Grimentz early season is that there is lots of safe terrain (sub-30º) and very few people chasing the powder turns!

Hopefully it won't be another 7 years before I am back again...

Now its time for a couple of days off with the family, then back to work on Tuesday with a couple of IFMGA Mountain Guides and their friends for some steep coaching... bring it on!

The fun continues... off piste intro day 5

Day 5 of the Off Piste Introduction course today. Despite early flurries of snow the cloud gradually lifted through the day allowing us to put in a good run down to Le Raffort in slightly variable powder, followed by a good session in and around the Courchevel couloirs.

Rocher de L'Ombre:

Entry to Emile Allais a bit rocky at the moment but fine if you pick a cautious line in:

Rich giving it some:

Ben styling it up:

Today was my first full day on the Carbonlite Ranger skis kindly provided by Whitedot Skis this winter. I am suitably impressed - having had a few hours skiing soft powder a week or two ago - today was an interesting test as in the morning we were travelling a bit slower, and despite reports that the Ranger CLs needed to be driven hard I found them very easy to ski at slow speeds too (perhaps symptomatic of the general skiing public's inability to properly steer/smear a turn these days). A full report will follow shortly - I will be interested to compare to my old favourites the Volkl Gotamas tomorrow...

Winter 2012 Slideshow

I have finally got around to sorting out a slideshow from the 11/12 season - are you in there?

Winter 2012 Slideshow from Simon Christy on Vimeo.

April Powder part 2

Another day another set of powder turns.

Despite a gloomy start in Meribel yesterday morning I was hopeful there would be a 'window' of opportunity mid-morning before the next set of precipitation came in and so it turned out. As we worked our way up high the skies brightened and we were treated to a good 3 hour spell of blue skies, linking up some great powder descents around the top of the Mottaret valley.

Nick:


Tom:




Jen:

What it should look like!

And this is what yesterday's couloir looks like in the sun! 650m very foreshortened as you look up from the valley!

Summer break

OK, it's been radio silence here for some time due to a variety of reasons - work (& lots of it), moving house, preparing for the imminent arrival of Offpisteskiing Jr, lots of family visits and 3 weeks without internet in the new house...
Sadly with all this going on there has been little time to get out in the mountains, particularly frustrating as there was a good window last week, with a few folks sneaking in a descent of the NW face of the Bionassay.

Preparations are well under way for 2012 - check out our course schedule here and don't hesitate to get in touch if you don't see the dates you want or would like to discuss some private guiding.

Kyrgistan 2012: The big project for February 2012 is a week of ski mountaineering based in a yurt in the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgistan - there are still a couple of spaces left on this exciting trip for strong ski mountaineers with a sense of adventure!

For those of you in the UK a date for your diary is the weekend of the 10/11 December - the 4th British Ski Mountaineering Symposium is happening based at Plas y Brenin in N Wales, and I will be giving a presentation and also delivering practical sessions as part of this. There is a great line-up of speakers for this weekend so put the dates in your diary now!!

And finally... Sweetgrass Productions have just released the trailer for their latest film: Solitaire - looks great, and if their previous offering 'Signatures' was anything to go by, it will be well worth seeking this out at a Film Festival near you this autumn (more of that later...).

SOLITAIRE: A Backcountry Skiing, Snowboarding, and Telemark Film from Sweetgrass Productions on Vimeo.

2009 Off Piste courses

With a wintry chill now in the air and the first snows starting to fall in Scotland now is a good time to check out the Offpiste skiing website for details of our courses for this coming winter.

New for 2009 is our 'Steep Vanoise' week running from 21 - 28 Feb, based in Bourg St Maurice. This week is aimed at strong off-piste skiers and conditions permitting we will head for classic descents such as the North Face of Bellecote, and the North face of the Foglietta. Contact Simon here for more information.