Valdez Couloir

A few days ago now, managed to squeeze this in on Saturday morning before work. A pretty gnarly descent with Jamie and Ely, from the top of Aguille Rouge down the Valdez Couloir and on down to Villaroger.

wednesday 11th feb

Over to La Plagne today for some powder turns with Paula, Tracey, Jonothan, Jamie and Ely. On my new skis today - Line Prophet 100's with Marker Baron's. Oooooh yeah:)

Friday 30th January

It was just Jamie and myself today. We decided to go ahead with the plan of the Grand Col route without Chris (who was out with a bung knee) and his mates. The route was quite tracked and therefore easy to follow, but still easy enough to find fresh tracks by stepping to the side a bit. We met up with Po for a couple of pints at l’Altiport afterwards and thus I find myself sitting at home typing these few words with a slightly fuzzy head.

Thursday 29th January

Today we managed to hook up with a contact of Jamie’s for a ski off-piste. Chris is an off-piste ski guide, a bit of a character but a pretty handy person to know. Two of his mates joined us for the day – Paul and Keith. The plan was a couple of runs down la Bellecote’s petite face nord. After a delay of about an hour to get across to La Plagne on the Vanoise ‘Express’ due to strikes or crowds or dodgy French queuing tactics, we opted for a bit of a play in La Plagne first and only the one run down la Bellecote.

First run was off Roche de Mio, down the widest of Les Rossets couloirs to the bottom of the Telesiege de Chalet de Bellecote. We had a little play around under this lift before accessing la petite face nord. The snow cover down the north face was good and the run wasn’t too tracked out. A good run for our first 2000m vertical descent. Certainly the views we had of the south face of Mont Pourri and beyond to Mont Blanc were worth it.

Our route down from Roche de Mio

Keith nearing the bottom of the petite face nord.

Looking over to Les Arcs. Our routes down in to Nancroix.