Today Seb and I skied the North Face of the Aiguille du Midi by the Eugster couloir. First skied in June 1977 by Laurent Giacomini. It hasnt had any descents yet this year and didnt have any last year.
Seb near the top with the Aiguille du Midi cable car cables right overhead.
Seb at the point where the Eugster and the Mallory part ways. We head down on the skiers left while the Mallory goes over the half moon behind Seb
As the couloir drops into shadow down on my left there is a 30m abseil. We found a good rock to abseil off.
The couloir opened up a bit after the first big abseil. The next abseil is at the bottom of this snow field where there is a small sunny half moon windlip on the left.
And after a final abseil there were sweet turns to be had all the way to the rimay.
There are more pics here and a google earth map of the descent
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Mon 9-03-09 13:32; edited 1 time in total
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Hats off to you boys. That is someting I will never experience as a town boy stuck in the north of England!!
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Wed 11-05-05 19:10; edited 1 time in total
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?
Cool, much respect!
Cheered me up to see someone doing some epic turns whilst I've been sat in a tedious meeting in London all day.
How long is the hike out at the bottom? And how do you know no one else has skiied it all season? I'm not doubting you, but curious to know if there's a book at the top or part way down like some summits have, do the lifties keep a record, or is it just a matter of record amongst the extreme skiiers in Cham.
BTW, this ice bollard you mention on your site, exactly how big does it have to be before you will trust your weight to it?
Steve Sparks, Ice bollards can be fairly small ie sub 2 feet. You could even drill a V thread (Abolokov anchor) which only needs one foot of good ice and is safe and quick to set up.
Snow bollards are less secure - make them much bigger and pad the rear with clothing and/or ice axes (can be retrieved if tied to one side of rope). Hope I never have to use one though
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Steve Sparks wrote:
And how do you know no one else has skiied it all season?
It is pretty hard to ski one of the descents under the Midi cable car and no one notice it being done. It is actually pretty hard to ski any of the ‘big lines’ in this area and no one notice it. There are a crowd of people here who are continuously eyeing up these lines and waiting for them to get in condition and they will notice anyone else on them.
I have been looking at skiing off the north face of the midi for three years now and have been keeping a close eye on it, close enough to know that last year Seb skied the Mallory in terrible conditions and it was mostly side stepping down and lots of abseils. A few days after him Remy Lacluse (a guide) skied it with a client!! Again many rappels. They were the only descents last year, no one skied the Eugster. It might have got more descents if the Midi cable car hadn’t shut for a month due to them dropping the cable during maintenance.
The year before (2003) it was the hot hot summer and there was no where near enough snow on either line for them to be skied.
The year before that (2002) it was in poor condition. It still got one descent when Marco and Bertrand snowboarded the Mallory, they had to down climb large sections of it though as well as some rappels. I wasn’t keeping such a close eye on the Eugster that year, I don’t think anyone skied it but cant be sure.
After all it is free
After all it is free
I skied with Remy Lecluse on an SCGB holiday in Chamonix in 1998 and he was by a distance the best skier I've ever seen. Someone said back then that he'd been the first guide to take a paying punter down the north face of the Midi, but gawd knows what kind of client it was, certainly no ordinary holiday skier like me...
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philingle, They must use those piste bashers with a winch attached on these pistes
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Chapeau!
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snoflake wrote:
Chapeau!
Shouldn't that be "Casque!" ?
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.
philingle wrote:
It hasnt had any descents yet this year and didnt have any last year.
You astonish me.
Great photos, btw.
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
Brilliant! Keep posting whenever you do something like that - it's great to look at the photos.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
PG, Why are you calling me a "helmet", is this a euphemism for something ruder
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
simply humbling
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Phil,
all your descents posted on here this year have been stunning! Can you share your background, how you developed your skiing/mountaineering to be able to do this kind of thing?
I assume a fair bit of planning is called for?
Is there an "unofficial" club/get together in Chamonix where these things are discussed and possibilities uncovered, this years routes analysed??
It's amazing to see, please keep posting!
regards,
greg
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Phil,
When I am a grown up I want to be 1/4 the skier you are!
Wow!
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?
Gregh
When I was two my family moved to Canada for 7 years. I learned to ski there mostly at Jasper but at other resorts as well. When we moved back to Wales we found the only way to keep on skiing was on the 35m long dry ski slope at Plas-y-Brenin. My brother and I went every friday night for 'race training' sessions. This was something that we had never been into in Canada but it was the only way to make 35m of Dendix interesting. We then started doing the dry slopes race circuit, then the snow races in Scotland, and then more british snow races in Europe and then FIS races in Europe.
The race scene was actually really restrictive, some thing I didn’t realise till I left it. but you didn’t drink much, always got up early to train, always skied the same piste, spent ages looking after your skis etc etc. My first University ski holiday showed me that you can actually have loads of fun going skiing and all the free time to ski rather than train poles meant that fairly quickly I had skied the resort out and was looking for more interesting things to ski. My brother used to be a driving force, always spotting lines and working out how to get to them and ski them while I was still suffering from a blurry hangover.
While at Uni I spent a year studying in Lyon, France. One weekend about a month after we had arrived there two other exchange students from Leeds and myself hitched up to Chamonix and tried to climb Mont Blanc. We wore our skiing jackets and pants and had on hiking boots. We soon realised that we didn’t have the right gear and headed back down to Cham and bought some plastic boots, crampons and ice axes in the end of summer sales. The next weekend we came back and claimed the summit. We were all super fit and athletic but our performance up at altitude was exceptionally bad, we all had headaches and felt sick and were about the slowest party to the top. We didn’t realise that we would have to book the hut so ended up sleeping in a snow cave on the dome de Gouter.
That year in France I rock climbed nearly every weekend all over the place. At the end of the year I went to La Berarde in the Ecrins Massif and had my first alpine climbing summer. The highlight probably being the traverse of the Barre d’Ecrins and the Aiguille Dibona by the Madier route. I went back to the Ecrins for quite a few summers after that.
After Uni I worked in my home town of Llanberis for about four years. I enjoyed being there and got out in the mountains a lot either climbing or mountain biking. I then moved to Nottingham and could only manage 2 years of being stuck in a city where the mountains were so far away you couldn’t go there after work. I gave up my job and moved to Chamonix.
When I first arrived in Chamonix it didn’t take long for me to realise that the place I wanted to ski was up on the Midi. Getting dropped off by the cable car at the top of the midi is as good as getting dropped of anywhere in the alps by a helicopter. I also quite quickly realised that although the Rond and Cosmique are more ‘serious’ than the group of routes down the Vallee Blanche they have less crevasse danger and so are safer to ski on your own. If you head down knowing that there is another party coming along after you you feel relatively safe. I was there every day and pretty soon started to see the same faces and meet other skiers. After a while I started to get invited to go and ski lines with more experienced people, at first I found the climbing of these scary, my experience of climbing being limited to rock and ice, this snow slope thing didn’t seem too solid. But after a while you get used to it.
You are right about a fair bit of planning. Lots of these lines are only briefly in condition every year if at all, you have to keep watching them. You also keep up to date on what other lines have been skied so you can compare altitude and aspect to get ideas of the snow condition on the line you want to ski. And ski easily accessible slopes like the Rond and Cosmique to keep an idea of the snow conditions.
There is a bar in town where most of the participants go regularly. You only need to head in there and grab a few beers and chat to a few people and you will know who has skied what recently and what condition it was in. you hear what people are thinking of skiing and what everyone thinks might come into condition soon.
Its testament to the accuracy of the planning that when I turned up at the Midi the other day Caleb and Schafer turned up to catch the same 11:00 cable car to ski the same line. Unfortunately for them Schafer had lift pass problems and they had to bail.
skiking4, thanx for digging this out of the archives...philingle, nice stoke..ballsy line..last 2 pics especially make my wee wee tingle ...........
okbye
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
philingle, Great info and pics as usual fella, pure inspiration. I'm still keeping my eye on some much smaller and rather less steep gullies in North Wales.... where's all the old style snow gone?
After all it is free
After all it is free
poo-poo!!! As someone who has been up the Aiguille Du Midi, you must be mad
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Wow! Respect.
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
This line has been skied a lot this year. About 2 weeks ago it was skied by sixteen different people in a 2 day period.
The Mallory was skied in November last year by one of the crazy Swedes in town.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Sorry to resurrect this thread yet again but I've just found a video of a descent of the Mallory Eugster Couloir by Santi Padrós and Giacomo Schenardi on 25 April this year (in HD too!):
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.
Amazing......
Silly question - how do you get back your rope when you're descending like that - shows my ignorance!!!
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
Look carefully and you'll see it's always TWO pieces of rope. Or, more precisely, two pieces tied together or one in a long loop. At the top you put them round a snow bollard or through a piece of 'tat' that you leave behind. When all are safely down you just pull on one end - and hope it doesn't get stuck.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Great video.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Holy Cow!
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Great video! I wish I had the balls (and skiing ability) to do that!
There were a couple of French guys setting off yesterday at around 10.30am and there were already 3 or 4 tracks that you could see on the way up in the cable car.
This is the view from the arrete. Looks very tempting but somewhat scary!!!
Are any of the other couloirs skied?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
altis wrote:
Sorry to resurrect this thread yet again but I've just found a video of a descent of the Mallory Eugster Couloir by Santi Padrós and Giacomo Schenardi on 25 April this year (in HD too!):
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?
bobinch, There's 3 main lines skied on the north face - the Eugster, the Mallory-Porter, and the North Face of the Col du Plan (roughly #2 on your pic). Col du Plan was skied lots about 10 days/2 weeks ago - not sure if its still in good nick. Eugster has been getting skied regularly for last 2 weeks generally in good nick, though mates of mine had a 5 hour epic in there a week ago on rather firm snow... (hoping to sneak in a run if I can get away from commitments here), Mallory has also been getting skied in last 2 weeks..shares the start of the Eugster then stays skiers right basically under the midi cables...
Thanks offpisteskiing. Looking at the gradient and rocks I assume the engagement on these routes is extremely serious - you fall, you die?
I love the idea of the challenge of doing a route like the Mallory/Eugster but (don't have the ability) and even if I did, I am not sure I could ever deal with that risk level.
How do you handle this risk in your head?
When I get into situations where a fall becomes very serious (not usually on purpose!) I have to fight myself to stop it freaking me out with the associated negative impact this has on my ability to get down.
You must have serious belief in your ability but also the ability to channel out the unpredictables, like catching an edge on a hidden rock, or debris taking you out from above?
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Sun 10-05-09 11:22; edited 1 time in total
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Quote:
Looks very tempting
not to me it doesn't. There aren't too many skiers who could sensibly head over that edge. Great to watch, though - I'd love to be in that cable car watching someone coming down.
After all it is free
After all it is free
must be mad. Respect
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Staggering, that link of altis's makes it much clearer what this really entails.. I found this one (the Mallory) http://youtube.com/v/mSEmYkirBoE&feature=related even more impressive though - much more linking turns on what looks to me equally (or even more) committing terrain. I would love to do something like this - but a few more years' practice required (before I have to fact the fact that I'm not up to it) I feel .
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
