SnowSlider – Blogging From the mountains by ise

After not posting any photo’s for ages, here’s two days one after another! Obviously slightly busier today with the main holiday season kicking in so there was a small queue for the lift, in fact the new, increased capacity car looks like it’s copying reasonably well all things considered. But, I’d decided to skin up anyway, I’ve not skinned up to the top for ages so today was a good day for some exercise.
The trouble was, after doing a lot of nordic skiing recently, my skis felt like they weighed a ton, on any moderate gradient nordic skis are just so much better so it felt a bit like hard work until I got warmed up and into a groove.
But, a nice day which is what I took a couple more photo’s.

A few shots around Zinal as I’ve not posted many for ages, in part because I’ve been doing some other things elsewhere but also because I’ve not taken any. I actually left without my camera this morning but turned round to get it as an afterthought.

We were noticing it getting busier during the day, not sure if there’s a particular reason for that or it’s a sign that people are arriving for the holidays and grabbling a few extra hours on the slopes.

There’s always a series of slides along that ridge although I  think these were triggered by the piste security guys, it’s an obviously unsafe slope although the angle may not be too clear from the photo’. It’s likely it’ll snow again and we’ll see people skiing it regardless though, I’ve actually watched one person trigger a slide on it and they were lucky enough to ski out. His mates were stood underneath and we’re lucky not be hit by the debris.

And finally, looking like a long way down to Zinal. This can be a gem after fresh snow but the moguls have got to a size where the snow can’t fill them in, nevertheless it was about the best I’ve skied it this season.

Just a couple of photo’s from the the fourth day of the Jura Traverse. Weather was extremely poor and it just wasn’t a great day to get photo’s.

I’d spent the night at the Col du Marchairuz in the hotel there and planned to ski to Le Pont at the end of the Lac de Joux, I’d a couple of ideas for a route, ether to ski to the Col du Mollendruz or down to the lake. So I skied the ridge line to the Chalet Du Grand Essert and then decided to descend to the lake. I’d decided that the ridge wasn’t going to alter much, it hadn’t been tracked so it was hard work in places and I’d always got a descent to Le Pont off marked trails anyway.

As it was the track down to Les Bioux wasn’t prepared either and varied from unpleasant and crusted snow to packed and fairly easy. There’s supposed to be some sort of track around the lake, this wasn’t prepared either but it was easy enough skiing. Had the ice been stronger it would have been possible to ski on the lake which would have been a novelty.

After two days on the GTJ (Grande Traversée du Jura français) I stopped in the small border village of La Cure. From here my plan was to hit the TJS (Traversée du Jura Suisse) and move north up the Jura range on the Swiss side. I can really recommend the hotel in La Cure, Hotel Arbez Franco-Suisse which I though was excellent, so good I’ll probably go back sometime.

One option, and the one I’d recommend, would be to take that train to the next village and use the marked trails to get to the Col du Marchairuz where I was aiming to spend the next night. But, I’d decided to ski backcountry into the end of the ski area and then cut into the Col du Marchairuz from there. This obviously is somewhat challenging, you need to cross quite a big distance outside of marked trails and being able to do that safely, it goes without saying you shouldn’t do that alone.

So I set off on my own picking up a raquette track for the first few km.

Mostly my plan worked pretty well, I’d expected the terrain to get difficult in the forest though, probably the last things you want to ski through the forest on are a long pair of nordic skis without steel edges but it was what I had. I’d planned to basically cut over the peak and drop onto a small track marked on my map. I was gambling that was used for access in the summer, by quad bikes or 4WD to a couple of buildings, or that it was fairly wide and cleared of trees making it skiable. Had that not worked I was planning to carrying down through the forest hitting the outer loop of one of the nordic trails, slightly longer but assured of easier skiing.

But, the track turned out as I expected. wide enough to ski, in fact flat and wide enough to let the skis run a little down to the marked trails. Nevertheless, this was demanding skiing and I was pleased to hit the trail and find it mostly slightly downhill so I just boosted along for a few km without too much effort at all.

There is a trail over to the col du Marchiaruz but it wasn’t brilliant at all. I don’t think it had been prepared at all for some day and the snow had drifted in places making it awkward to ski.