And again there was a queue for the lift and the conditions up the valley weren’t ideal so this time I decided we’d try the slopes under the Hotel Weishorn near Saint-Luc. This worked really well, we didn’t see another person all day and had a great tour around the alpages and farms.

Along the way I logged a visit to another geocache, GCJYJG, this one was just at the point on the hill where the snow conditions were getting problematic and the chances of being caught in a slide were increasing. Another few hundred metres up and I’d have probably not bothered for safety reasons. Nearby proved a good location for a picnic and some photo’s so it was perfect.

We took a different route down, partly for variety and partly to see if we could avoid some of the ice we’d encountered on the way up. That wasn’t entirely successful and the path was difficult in places due to the ice but not enough ice for crampons or snow for snowshoes really.

Some amazing views over the valley and I’ll have to examine them to get an idea for a route tomorrow.

Lunch and a short stroll around Saint-Luc, it’s great, great weather at the moment and the autumn colours are really beginning to show. We took a path down I’ve not been on in summer and it was really excellent, I’d always though that particular path was great in the winter and spring on snowshoes as well.

Still quiet on the hill, most of the cows are down and there’s a small number of people around; it might be one of the best times of the year in the area, the weather and temperature are just perfect.

After being up in the snow it was very spring-like on our descent back to Saint Luc, some early flowering plants already taking advantage of the retreating snow line.

]]> http://snowslider.net/2009/04/11/col-de-vijiva/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ http://snowslider.net/2009/03/04/double-damn/ http://snowslider.net/2009/03/04/double-damn/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:10:58 +0000 ise http://snowslider.net/?p=605 After skiing to the barrage near Zinal yesterday today we skied to the Illsee barrage near Saint-Luc. I’ve wanted to ski this for a while, I’ve skied the north face of the Bella Tolla before but not descended so far or skied into the Illsee. It’s a good line, a descent, a climb, another descent and another climb before finishing above Chandolin.

Above left, a view into the valley we skied yesterday under the Orxival.  And right, a view into the valley from today.

By the time we were descending to the Illsee the light was a bit poor and the snow a bit marginal but it was a good pitch and a pleasant climb out again. All the nicer as I’d not toured on my Kilowatts before and not tried the old skins on them, happily the old skins fit a treat and I don’t need to buy any more.

The Bella Vouarda is a pass between the Forcletta and the Pointes de Nava which form a ridge running down to the Hotel Weisshorn, I’ve also been over here in the spring as an extended version of the classic traverse from Saint-Luc to Zinal.

As a snow shoe route this was pretty long, over 17km and nearly 1000m of ascent and probably not the easy stroll people generally associate with snow shoeing.

Mostly it’s been ski tourers up here so far and on snow shoes it made sense to take a slightly different line picking some of the firmer snow to keep the effort of breaking trail to a minimum.

The great thing with this route is that it’s high enough to be above the tree line and once you’ve left the main track to the Hotel Weishorn behind you’re in a fairly remote high alpine area.

From the Bella Vouarda we took a ridge line and traversed in to the Lac du Toûno before turning to descend via Le Chiesso and picking up one of the marked snow shoe trails back into Saint-Luc.

From the top it’s extremely icy for a few metres and I’m pretty grateful that I’d edged my skis yesterday, in fact I’d got a perfect edge on them and it gave me the confidence I needed to drop on the North Face of the Bella Tolla. The ice quickly gives way to some loose snow but it’s a lot steeper than I’d expected and I have to make a series of tricky jump turns and kick turns to get into a couloir and off the exposed face itself.

Above left, looking back up the first pitch and above right looking back at the whole face.

Another view (above left) of the route, the lower section is easily angled and the snow is pretty good. Above right, after climbing onto the Schwarzhorn ridge traversing to the summit.

From the top of the Schwarzhorn looking into the Chandolin ski area.

As I start climbing it’s fairly clear that the basically north facing slopes I’m climbing are still holding good snow, over the last week it’s been skied but it’s by no means tracked out and there’s a prospect of a good descent although it’s not going to be very steep.

There’s a couple of people on snow shoes but I soon pass them and they go no further than the first ridge before turing back. At that point I’m left alone in the valley which is pretty eerie in some ways but quite pleasant and reassuring to know it’s still possible to escape the crowds so easily.

Some views over to Grimentz (above left) and Zinal (above right). The climb actually starts to get awkward, there’d been a lot of tracks earlier but there’s none up here so I have to break ground towards Forcletta. Towards the top it actually gets quite awkward and I start slipping on some frozen, icy snow. I thought about turning back but with only a couple of hundred metres to the col it seems a shame not to push on so, I stop briefly and fit my ski crampons to get some more grip and carry on. Near the col the wind’s removed the snow and I take the skis off and hike to the ridge, my Gramont Megarides are ski mountaineering boots and have vibram soles so it’s easy to scramble to the top.

Above left, looking into the Turtmann or Tourtemagne valley, not much snow cover on the south slope but actually some nice looking snow in the bottom. Above right, looking at L’Omen Roso, I’d thought about doing this peak and in fact wished I had with hindsight, from there it’s possible to ski down to Ayer or Mottec. Ayer looks the better course although it’s bound to involve some walking through the forest.

It’s quite a nice spot at Forcletta, there’s not much wind and the sun is strong so I sit for a while eating a sandwich and taking a drink before packing away the skins and crampons and skiing down.

And the descent? It’s flat in places as I expect but there’s some good powder pitches and it’s quite good.

click on photograph for larger version

Like Zinal and Grimentz it seems pretty quiet over at Saint-Luc although we quickly left the lift system skiing down the Prilet run, the run drops you some way from the village and you need a bus to return and as that bus doesn’t start until 13:45 you don’t get many people on it in the morning. From there we took an easy climb up the prepared track to the hotel arriving in perfect time for lunch.

After lunch we ski down quickly and the shot above right is a view back to Hotel Weisshorn from where we’d left the car, the hotel is visible on the ridge in the top right of the photograph.

http://snowslider.net/anniviers-ski-bus/

It’s also a menu item along the top of this page along with some information about local avalanche conditions and snow pack stability, this is is just information published by SLF but I’ve collected it in one place. The snow pack stability image links back to the SLF site and from there you can click on the individual icons and see the detailed analysis worksheet which is pretty interesting.