No pain no gain, but was so tough

A snowHead

Had an American friend I've skied with come over from La Grave today to ski here in Serre Che so as usual pressure was on to give him a good time and todate my record has been pretty good with visiting dudes.

Forecast for today was dire with rain and temps nigh on double figs, so much so that I thought I was not going to bother, but we awoke to 5cms and there had been 5-10 up top yesterday so as viz lifted and blue sky began to appear so WhatsApp and texts started to ping.

Other Vikings were opting for La Grave as reports of 20cm there though bad viz and they thought I was winding them up with reports of blue sky!

Norm turned up and said he'd just be happy with some piste cruising but as we went up he started clocking various slopes. We did one he liked the look of but was too tracked out and none too pleasant though he liked it, but I had other plans.

Back up to the top and we went to look over the back and it looked super with around 10-15 of fresh, though was quickly warming up so we chose lines that had not seen so much sun and again the less steeper sloped delivered the sweetest snow.

I did this with KenX a few weeks back but this time we went straight down to the valley floor and snow was good all the way down.

So that was the good, or even great, and Norm was using the "A" word.

http://youtube.com/v/zryy3V1kEbQ

We started the climb back up and I said it would be a couple of hours, around 650m.

This time we went to the end of the valley and then started the climb, at first was not too bad, then as the longer traverses started so skis sliding down became an issue with Norm finding it hard work even though I was smashing a decent track for him, though that was taking it out of me. I was actually better with the uphill ski flat and my heel on the down hill all the way up and as usual twisting the body facing down hill always seems to work.

The traversing difficulties then gave way to something far worse, as temps rose and we were climbing up the fresh so the snow just kept sticking to our skins, Norm had a Californian word for it, glump or something.

We've all had it before but this was something else with every couple of glides picking up whole ski lengths.

I was getting very tired making the track and called a break where I downed nigh on a flask of tea and a sandwich. Sun was bearing down on us and we were climbing with just one top light layer it was that hot with sweat pouring off us.

Norm went and broke track and then the tea and food did the trick and energy came back with the snow now not so bad and one was able to pick a better line of harder snow.

But even though we only did 650m in around an hour and three quarters it felt far more.

Positive is that with a few more days of freeze thaw conditions will be superb, but ski crampons a must!

Help!!

No pain no gain, but was so tough

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