The last few weeks have been pretty full-on, with this weekend marking the first time in five weeks that Cate and I have been left solo! Since our friends Alex and Anna left at the end of our last blog, we have entertained my sister Lucy with her family in the first week, and our friend John this last week. In between, I have been off to St. Anton for a week’s “off-piste” skiing, whilst Cate returned to London for a busy week of admin.
For the week that Lucy, Wilton and Alice joined us, the weather was sadly rubbish. Snow, rain and poor visibility kept the days short, but they did manage to get on the slopes every day, and we joined them in Tignes for a day, where we managed to get the obligatory photo of all of us on a chairlift. The last time we skied with them – in Val Thorens – we got a similar photo that I turned into a jigsaw as a present for them, and Lucy turned into a tea towel as a present for us!
John was luckier with the weather and we skied with him in Val d’Isère, Tignes, La Rosière and La Thuile. We also met up with a large group comprising his nephews and assorted friends and we managed to hold the group (of around a dozen of us) together on a tour from Val d’Isère to Les Brevières.
From the 2nd to the 9th of March I have been skiing in St. Anton with David, Martin, Chris, Nick and our guide, Dave – a trip we have been doing together for over twenty years. In recent years the snow cover has been patchy, but this year we were treated to terrific conditions, and we made the most of them.
Dave decided to take no prisoners, and on the first morning we struggled down icy off-piste terrain. That afternoon things were to get even harder as he led us down a steep couloir on the Eastern face of the mountain ridge at the top of the Gampbergbahn chairlift. Falling was not an option, and neither did we dare relax enough to take pictures, so I’m afraid there is no photographic record of our descent. Dave did, however, record the route on his “Fatmap” software: the picture to the left shows our route from the ridge!
Day two, and Dave was in no mood to ease off! We started an ascent to the Trittkopf on skins, abandoning them in favour of crampons within five minutes as the route was so steep, and pausing only when David fell into a crevasse (actually the gap on the ridge formed by a collapsing cornice) and needed rescuing! It was hard to see any skiable route from the top, but Dave guided us expertly and safely down a fantastic route to the valley.
Although significant snowfall reduced visibility and off-piste options on a couple of days, it had the advantage of bringing lots of fresh snow, and we had two fabulous days at the end skiing powder on routes over the back end of the Rendl ski area. On the Thursday we skied a long route down from the top of the Riffelbahn lift, and on the Friday, from the same start point, traversed and skinned across to the next valley system, from where we had a memorable descent all the way to the village of Saint Jakob, before a bus ride back to St Anton, and a detour to the bar for a much deserved beer at the end!
I took my 360 degree camera, and have made a short film of our exploits… have a look at it at the end of this blog.
