 Poster: A snowHead
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It's been on my bucket list for a long while, right in front of where we live is the Tête du Grand Pré, it's a big face with numerous off-piste routes, however, route finding is extremely difficult as well as dangerous, and access is also difficult having to take lifts and then long traverses and hikes to get to the various lines.
In the ten or so years that I've lived here I've only done 5 descents, and much of it is untracked for most of the season.
As some of our ski touring routes this past season were more popular than usual (for obvious reasons) so I've been looking at the Tête as a ski-touring sector as I've never seen anyone skinning up there, and it could provide great pre-season North facing tree runs similar to some other routes we do.
I've hiked up there a couple of times as there is a sentier that goes a third of the way up, but I wanted to hike a route that would be where I'd skin up.
It's not till you actually get on the mountain do you find out what the terrain is like and I had a mixture of everything to contend with, thick vegetation, shrubs, shale, rocks, but I knew that would be the case as I wanted to hike up the open glades as opposed to in the trees.
I'd planned the route using a number of mapping tools as well as double-checking steepness but I knew that there would be a fair amount of following my nose.
On my phone I used two mapping apps, one which showed steepness and aerial photography (IGNRando) and another straight IGN routing (Memory Map).
It was certainly tough but I accomplished my objective and found my way to the top of the bowl just below the Tête du Grand Pré, which you can't actually see from the valley.
The climb was circa 1,000m though I could have gone further and higher into the bowl but I'd achieved what I'd set out to do.
I know that skinning up should be far easier than hiking and faster, and as gradients go above 20° so kick-turns will be necessary, I think that's an interesting element to determining slope angles, in that once you're on 25°+ then kick-turns are mandatory unless you're a SkiMo Pro, I can just about straight-line 20° but it's hard work, plus I was trying to find a route that others might not find too physical.
Clamber down was way faster than going up, but had to be very careful with footing, and again was a case of following my nose/sniffing out a ski line.
About 400m into the descent I stopped and went cold, my phone was no longer in my pocket!
I started to climb back up but that would have been useless as the chances of me taking the same route up and finding it were really low, a real needle in a haystack scenario!
So I decided to head down to home as I was recording the hike on my watch (Strava to the rescue) and then download the GPX file and upload that to my wife's phone as a Strava route which I could then follow and more importantly use her phone to ring mine.
I also uploaded the track to my watch so I could use that as well in case the Strava route would not work as I could retrace the route backwards.
Hiking down without a phone I suddenly felt very exposed, if I twisted a knee/ankle I'd be up there and would be unable to contact anyone so I headed to the sentier where I knew it would be easier to descend.
Once back at home I was in a bit of a state and spent an hour or so sorting the tech side of things out, rehydrating and fueling up prior to going back up there.
I took the van up the trail cutting off a km and started the hike and it was good that indeed I could see where I was compared to the Strava track as well as using my watch.
The objective was where I'd realised I'd lost it, so was circa 500m climb. Once there, I called my phone and my heart pumped fast with adrenalin as I heard it ringing and there it was hanging in a tree in the dog-pooh bag I had it in to protect it from my sweat, as I'd walked through some loose branches it had caught on them and was pulled out of my pocket!
The Google Earth plot of my route shows where I had to climb to, marked in red.
Once back down I was playing around with the FatMap app and saw that from the desktop site you can upload a GPX which I did and that was really interesting as you can see how my route compared to a descent a friend of mine has done for FatMap, ironically I should have looked at that as well when doing my route planning!
It really is a hell of a shock when you think you've lost your phone as if like me you have so much of your life on it, for sure I have regular back-ups but the hassle factor, what with being in France would be immense, not least as I have two sims in it, one UK and the other French.
Should add I did try the Google/Android lost my phone software but it only gave me a radius of 4km?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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This article is the type of reading I enjoy on Snowheads! Informative, educational and amusing (to some extent)
I must say how surprised I am that nobody else has made any remarks so far. The concept of a route "check" is one I like and indeed something I've undertaken on several occasions.
The phone safety issue is a real source of concern, mine has a lanyard on it for clipping into pocket or rucksack. The earache from the boss when my last phone got lost isn't something I wish to repeat.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Good story, thanks for sharing @Weathercam,
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Yet another 'stupid old geezer forgetting where they left their phone' story 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Looks interesting.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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map and compass?
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| Weathercam wrote: |
| ... It really is a hell of a shock when you think you've lost your phone as if like me you have so much of your life on it, for sure I have regular back-ups but the hassle factor, what with being in France would be immense, not least as I have two sims in it, one UK and the other French. ... Should add I did try the Google/Android lost my phone software but it only gave me a radius of 4km? |
It must have been in in mobile coverage as you called it. Assuming you had active data I'm surprised it could not query the GPS location "on demand", which would give more precision. I'm not sure how to explain that. Your other tracks were using the same technology so it's not a GPS problem (your tracks were more precise than "find my phone").
If you compare Google's location history against those GPX tracks, is there a clue in that? I don't know how that API works exactly. They may aggregate data, for example. Even so, if the phone was stationary for a significant time you'd expect that to be a way point.
If you're nervous about losing contact by losing your phone, which is a single point of failure, there's always a Garmin InReach, which also has the advantage of not being limited to mobile coverage. I kind of want one of those but would maybe feel stupid paying for the sat subs when spending all summer on the beach.
Having a phone in a plastic bag is definitely a good idea - I carry Tesco bags for my camera having experimented with heavy rain and "weather sealed" professional cameras in the past.
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@philwig, last time I looked, inreach had pretty flexible subs available. You could certainly just get it for the winter then switch it off for the summer months
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Get yourself one of these, they are really practical, esp. for ski touring and MTBing.
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@DB, not that practical for ski touring if you wear an avalanche transceiver in chest holster… (https://www.alpine-guides.com/ski/insider-knowledge-ski/transceiver-interference-advice/)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I have an Inreach but did not take that with me (maybe silly as I was on my own), but just the unit on its own would have been a real PITA the retrace the breadcrumbs, as I could not have used the associated Earthmate app as that was on my phone!
That said I also had the breadcrumb trace on my Suunto which I was also using, but pretty sure I could not have used that without first uploading the track/route back to my watch id that makes sense.
I do look back on it all and am still mildly amazed I pulled it off!
And @DB, yes to some sort of pouch for it when hiking!
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Well at least now we know how all those black bags full of dog crap find their way onto tree branches across the country. I always thought it was just irresponsible dog owners.
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