On Monday evening I left Verbier for a two day ski trip to la Grave. I took my friend Leefy with me.
4 hours after leaving Verbier we actually considered putting snow chains on my car (4x4 with good winter tyres). We were getting pretty pumped.
Day 1.
The weather looked OK, clouds came and went but the vis wasn’t good enough for us to ski anything big. The glacier wasn’t open so we just lapped the top section. Up top the snow was cracking, light powder… in mid April… in Euroland…
Home:
We mainly skied the main drags down, but we did manage first tracks down in the Patou coloir and Trifide II.
Robonob was hungry:
Fortunately lunch was good:
My point and shoot wasn’t up to much, but we shot a little footage, the first two runs on the video came after lunch.
Over 6000m of entertainment, we built up an appetite but taking a chef with you always pleases ones host. Vertigo liked Leefy's (Robonob) sausage pasta thing.
Day 2.
The weather started better but by the time were skiing came slighty over cast and stayed like that all day.
In the morning Raph joined us and we skied Chirouze de Droite. From the glacier 3550m, in condition you ski 2400m right down to the road…
We hiked for 10 mins from the top of the drag. The top 100m were wind effected but it soon became pretty good...
Raph:
You really just keep skiing down:
We’re close to the walk out now:
The snow at the bottom was very smooth and we were still pretty exposed.
Some survival skiing:
The ropes were about to come out any way, so we made it safer:
A short rap:
It was a very good descent, looking back up:
A 25 minute walk out got us to the road where we had earlier left a car.
Lunch was not so good. Almost sacked the guide. He made up for it by drowning us in powder as we started our trip down la Voute.
Leefy:
Then it gets tighter:
And lots of fun:
Lots:
Some more rope fun:
Didn’t really get the camera out much after that, I filmed Vertigo and Leefy skiing the last really skiable pitch, last on the video.
This time we had a longer walk out, we looked good though:
A short hitch dropped me back at my car while the boys recovered down by the road.
la G***e is in Denmark and offers some fantastic piste skiing. More here.
I have another TR from 2 days skiing in la Grave in February, saving it for summer stoke.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
I do rather hope this trend for posting numbers of quite large pictures stops. If nothing else they cause a lot of scrolling down on a page which spoils the flow of a thread, IMV. I suppose there is an element of my pictures are bigger than your pictures. Wonder where that will end.
Looks a great trip, though.
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?
I quite like having the pictures telling the story, definitely prefer it to text.
Those are great descents aren't they - very envious! I finally got to do those (although the left rather than right bank of Chirouse) on Easter Sunday. We managed to ski out all the way, but it looks like your skiable snow was even nicer than ours. Who was your guide?
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
A (easier) route down to La Grave is on my shopping list for the not too distant future. I'm not up there with relentless jump turning, crampons and abseiling yet but a fair weather day trip from L2A in spring conditions down the not so extreme would suit me sir. An excellent report IMUE.
As for pictures and quite apart from them expressing a thousand words, they are what make forums infinitely more interesting, readable and stimulating than newsgroups such as rec.resorts.skiing.europe. Skiing is a highly sensory activity and personally, I appreciate a bunch of well explained, lowish resolution photos especially in a self-started, dedicated thread. In the age of broadband, the time to load is negligible and snowy white scenes can be downsampled at say 800x600 dpi to display nicely at an average size of 50K.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
achilles wrote:
I do rather hope this trend for posting numbers of quite large pictures stops. If nothing else they cause a lot of scrolling down on a page which spoils the flow of a thread, IMV. I suppose there is an element of my pictures are bigger than your pictures. Wonder where that will end.
I quite enjoy to see a few photos in a thread. Maybe a bit too many and too big in this instance.
Some forums seem to have an automatic downsizing feature.
I wish I had the skill and the guts to try a descent like that.
After all it is free
After all it is free
very nice - looks like it was well worth the trip
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.
parlor, Great report, good pix. I agree with Max13biker, about the downsizing though. When I post they're automatically downsized. I like pix personally. (but not when I'm at my dad's!)
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
achilles, didn't even notice they were big, we have huge connections in Switzerland. As for numbers? It took me two hours to reduce it from 70 to 20ish, it's the reason I haven't finished the Feb trip TR as we had 200+ photos from twp days skiing, I hate choosing them.
GrahamN, not actually a guide, just an idiot that lets me sleep in his flat and then comes skiing with us.
moffatross, there are some really nice and chilled runs down. It's amazing skiing with all those big mountains around you.
Max13biker, a system like on Facebook would be great, just click on the image you want to upload and have the rest done for you, no messing around with stuff.
Arno, oh yes! I guess Monday kinda sucked here so I was very happy to make the drive.
easiski, thanks. The snow was so good I kept an eye out for you!
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
parlor, it's not mainly a problem of bandwidth here - merely that it is a pain IMV to scroll down through that lot - especially when going on to further posts in the thread. In part that is caused by the pictures still loading as I scroll down -which I guess is a bandwidth thing (though speed normally seems pretty quick). If IRRC, admin himself asked that pictures should be by links except in Apres and the Buy, Sell, Exchange sections. For those without picture galleries of their own for links, there is the snowMedia zone. That's it - I shan't make this a prolonged rant.
As I said - it looks like it was a great trip.
Last edited by snowHeads are a friendly bunch. on Fri 18-04-08 9:07; edited 2 times in total
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.
achilles, then I will not enter a discussion about it either. Cache and space bar, it's all you need.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
parlor, I was right with you until the words "rope" and "hike" Looks great
achilles, I'm afraid I disagree with you - I much prefer pics to thumbnails. It's the thumbnails that disrupt the thread flow for me because they open in a separate Snowmediazone window every time and going back and forth is a right PITA. Pics in a TR like this are part of the narrative. It's no worse than any other thread with 39 posts on a page in terms of scrolling imo - nowt wrong with hitting End and scrolling up
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
achilles wrote:
..........If IRRC, admin himself asked that pictures should be by links except in Apres and the Buy, Sell, Exchange sections. .......
......Note:- Although it is possible to include images like this, we would ask you to refrain from doing so in your posts except on the "Après Zone" or "Buy, sell or swap" forums. These 'inline' images ................in our opinion, spoil the sleek lines of the piste
.
Still seems good advice.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
i have taken to putting "(with pics)" in the title so the grumpy pants who don't like pics can consider themselves warned
parlor, yes monday was a bit of a "back to earth with a bump" after saturday and sunday. paul and i had to make do with a massive roesti and tootling around on piste. nice and quiet though
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
parlor, Great pics
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Another vote here for as much ski porn as possible, with the deepest powder, the bluest skies and the most pixels! It's a long time until next winter and personally I think the snowMedia zone is crap, I much prefer pics being with the stories and discussions they relate to. I particularly loved the survival skiing and bushwhacking ones, not often published but this kind of thing often makes an off-piste run memorable to me.
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?
parlor, Great photos and looks like a nice trip thanks for Sharing and making us all Love to see fellow skiing like that
Haggis_Trap, best to have pictures in a gallery like this, it think. Interesting pictures, load quickly, and still tell their story. I commend it to you. Dude.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
parlor, Fantastic Stuff..... LG really does serve up proper big mountain skiing A good day there is very satisfying indeed.
PS, please can you make the pictures bigger..........
After all it is free
After all it is free
Haggis_Trap, hope you got some good shots up/down the bec. Annoyed I had a hang over now. Ho-hum, you miss some...
norris, thanks, in future I'm only going to post full size high res images (7-8mb) so you can download them and print them at will... Attention SKGB you're gonna love my new royalty free gallery.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
Looks great
Love to see fellow 
skiing like that
