Val d’Rechy - La Brinta - Orxival - St Jean
28th December 2007
There’s some good touring conditions currently, a stable snow pack and, if you can get away from the ski area, still some good snow to be found. So a group of four of us, David, Neil, Claire and myself set out for a ski tour from Grimentz. Our basic route was to take the lifts to Becs de Bosson and head over the col de Louche then ski down the val d’Rechy to L’Ar du Tsan. From L’Ar du Tsan then to climb La Brinta and ski down the Orxival to St Jean to pick the post bus back to Grimentz. I’d picked this route because I guessed some of the sheltered aspects of the route would have preserved the snow which turned out to be a good guess and we found some pretty nice snow.
I recorded the route as file for Google Earth : Google Earth Track File
The snow was great skiing down the Rechy although we got caught a little low near L’Ar du Tsan and had to pole a few meters but otherwise it worked fairly well. As usual even though it’s cold once we started the ascent it got pretty hot, Neil and Claire reached the summit before David and I as we spread out a little ascending. Generally I’m quite pleased with my Black Diamond Voodoos but they’re pretty awkward to kick turn and I managed to fall over a couple of times stepping on the back of my own ski, it’s the added length and width that makes it awkward and I’d certainly not like anything fatter or longer.
Once we’d got to the top it was great to see that the route plan was good as there was a good amount of untracked powder below us. In fact it lasted a fair way down before getting a bit lumpy in the woods above St Jean.
It turned out we missed a bus by a couple of minutes in St Jean but the bus stop shares the space with a bar so we took a couple of beers while waiting for the next bus. All in all an excellent day and some great skiing.
Sphere: Related ContentRelated posts
January 1st, 2008 at Tue, 01 Jan 2008 18:43:03 +0100
[...] the Avoin run down to St-Jean. I’d joined this run the other day when we skied down from the Orxival after climbing La Brinta. In truth it’s not much of an itinerary and more of a prepared piste and pretty hard pack at [...]