The Vallee Blanche - Once, twice and once more for fun!

Chamonix is about big mountains and steep skiing, but of late much of the “extremities of Chamonix” (Blizzard of Ahhs) has been un-skiable due to lack of snow. However after the snowfalls of the Christmas period we decided to go up and give it a go.

The Aiguille du Midi cable car is full of sightseeing tourists at this time of year, they were a bit surprised to see two skiers with harnesses and back packs joining them on New Year's Eve!

The Vallee Blanche descent normally begins with a walk down an exposed but well protected ridge. We were presented with an icy knife edge with no fence or ropes, a slightly unnerving side slip followed, with the potential for a 250m slide or a 1500m fall depending on which way you slide.

From the end of the ridge we headed off down the Envers Du Plan, lovely deep powder!  It's a fantastic run with a few seracs and crevasses to be negotiated and a steepish couloir ending at the Mer du Glace. It's then a 5km slow pole to Montenvers.

Braving hangovers we returned on New Year's Day for round two…….my nerve didn’t hold and I walked down the ridge, crampons on feet and skis on my pack, rather than skiing. This time we followed the ridge north east and skied the Col du Plan route.

This is a bit trickier but gives some steeper skiing. We were shadowed by some guides checking out the various routes for bringing clients down. The wind had been up overnight and the snow had shifted. This meant not just fresh tracks but the Mer du Glace had much less snow, so we only poled about 2km (ice is much more slippery than cold snow).

On the third of Jan we decided that my boss Martina had been in the office too long and needed to go skiing. We went to repeat the Envers du Plan route, only to be confronted by about 100 people doing the normal route on the Vallee Blanche. Guided groups with ropes and axes do make such a mess on the ridge, but luckily they didn’t ski off in the same direction as us.

Our luck held and on reaching the walk out the wind had been playing again and we had an icy rattle all the way to Montenvers without any poleing. Which was rather good as
after all the excitement Martina was rather exhausted.

More pictures of the Vallee Blanche

Words and Pictures from Tom Greenall - Natives Resort Reporter in Chamonix

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