Tour du Ciel, day 4, 4th May 2008
7th May 2008
Here we are, day four at a fairly leisurely 0500 start and hitting the hill at 0615. The night was spent in the Tracuit Hut which at 3270m is fairly high, the hut was pretty busy probably due to such superb conditions.
So far the tour has just been extraordinary, the best trip I’ve made this year really and that’s due in large part to the guide Fredy Tscherrig who set the trip up, his knowledge of the area is just stunning and his passion for it is obvious.
For me today is the point of the trip, in some ways the point of the season and probably of life itself! I’ve spent the season skiing in the Val d’Anniviers and one of the reasons I actually ski tour is to explore more of the valley. Now we are at 3270m high up in the Anniviers, three days into the trip and ready to make an ascent of he Bishorn at 4153m. The Bishorn is a “ski 4000″ so we’re going to be able to make all but the last few metres on skis.
I used Adobe LightRoom to make a web slideshow of the whole trip, view slideshow here.
And really conditions just couldn’t be better, light cloud, slightly cold, great snow cover and views so stunning they just take your breath away.
Like I said, perfect conditions and a popular route so there’s quite a few groups making for the summit today, as we get higher up at around 3900m we start to see people who left earlier skiing down. The terrain is easy enough to skin up but it’s a dangerous place to be to we ascend short roped.
Above left, the last few metres need to be completed on foot. Above right, looking back to Zermatt.
Above left, the Weisshorn catching some cloud and adding to the atmosphere. Above right, looking back at our route of the last few days, the Dent Blanche just left of centre.
We’ve split into two ropes, the second rope make the summit.
Looking over the Anniviers, above right, looking at Zinal and Grimentz. It’s really the season high point for me now, I’ve looked over at the the Bishorn hundreds of time during the season and anticipated this moment and it’s all gone to plan, even that broken boot seems fairly minor at this point.
All that remains now is to enjoy the moment and then ski the 2500m back down to Zinal.
And we drop off the summit into brilliant packed powder, easy skiing and we quickly drop the 900m back to the Tracuit for a drink and snack.
Leaving the Tracuit we ski down through perfect spring snow heading for the Roc de La Vache, it’s perfect skiing on the transformed skiing and we make pretty quick work of it.
Then a quick skin to the the Roc de La Vache itself and starting the descent to Le Vichiesso. Le Vichiesso is somewhere I’ve been a few times already, it’s a junctions of routes above Zinal.
Now I start to get real problems with my broken boot, the snow has turned wet, heavy and soft and I’m being thrown back in the boots all the time, with the missing hinge I just can’t keep my weight in the front of the boots so it’s pretty hard work.
The snow runs out just around the old copper mine above Zinal, a few metres above the village and couple of km walk out along the cross country tracks.
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