TR: Up with the lark

A snowHead

Another trip up to the Glandon, possibly the last time I'll come here with skis this season. The plan was to climb the 2885 meter Aiguille d'Olle via the north-west couloir then traverse back to the Glandon via a couple of minor passes to arrive as close as possible to the car-park on skis.

The red lines show climbing, the blue, descents.

We wanted to ski over into another valley, but Gilles, who I had not skied with since the Pic Bayle last May, had the toe-piece on his Dynafit binding explode. This meant it wouldn't lock properly for climbs so we decided to stay in the bowl where we knew we could ski out if this proved to be a serious problem.

Setting off at 6am we climbed the Marmottane on the right of the picture to take advantage of the east facing slopes and snow that was just starting to soften. We then climbed to the base of the Olle couloir n/w on glass hard snow, the surface must have been very wet the day before then refroze to an icy surface. Ski crampons were a must and we then changed to crampons and ice-ax for the 40 degree couloir.

Towards the end the couloir steepens to 45-50 degrees but fortunately there is an escape route onto a wider face that leads to the summit

on the way back down we skied where you see the post-holes (photo bottom right) rather than tackle the head of the couloir which was on very hard snow.

at the top of the summit plateau we abandonned skis and climbed

technically an easy pitch for ice specialists but it was exposed, a fall would mean 200 meters of rag-doll descent. The surface of the snow was hard but further down the snow could be rotten in places meaning that footholds were not always secure. The road pass you see is the col de la Croix de Fer

we were rewarded with amazing views from the summit over Vanoise and Grandes Rousses

in the distance we could see the Matterhorn, Combin, Dents Blanches and Viso.

Despite waiting an hour at the summit we knew that the descent of the couloir would be hairy, the snow hadn't softened a bit. Some skiers had taken advantage of the fresh snow on Monday and had triggered a sluff in the couloir that had completely removed any soft snow down to the hard base, the remains of the avalanche were visible at the bottom. What you see in this picture is ice-hard snow with frozen ruts, not pleasant and the first time I've had to side slip a slope this season. I say that because in general if you have to side slip a significant amount of slope it was probably better to ski something else. Still a useful technique.

but things soon improved as the slope opened up. We then climbed, on crampons again, to the appropriately named Breche du Chien

(dog gulch)

This had been side slipped by skiers who had kept their climbing skins on for the descent, a dangerous game given the exposure of the slope (cliff bands below), Personally I would have skied the pitch then refitted skins for the subsequent climb of the glacier.

We then had the superb snow of the Argentierre glacier

(the Breche de Chien is the 2nd couloir on the right of the photo)

before descending the notorious col de la combe

and the 600m of skiing on firn snow down to the Glandon.

Aiguille d'Olle - more information