Victoria Fall - Trip Report

**snowballs** · 12-12-2006, 04:05 PM

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“Qualunque errore e fatale” said the off-piste guide book: “Any mistake and you’re dead”. “Extremely difficult. Entry at 60º, slope 50º ... frequent cornices”
We had been taken to it on our first day and shuffled as close to the edge as we dared and peered over into the abyss. Days later, after a helicopter drop (the only way to ski the far side of this area) we had looked across at a rock wall over half a kilometre high and had pointed out to us a flat point on the ridge from which a little ribbon of snow traced a hesitant diagonal to the broad snow fields below. This was Victoria. It didn’t look skiable.
And now here we were, on our last day, preparing to be roped down into it.
Far below us huge, shattered seracs and magnificent snow fields spread out towards a distant valley, and beyond, under a brilliant blue sky, the hazy ranks of mountains marched off down the Val Grande and Val Gressoney into the heart of north Italy. Down there, we were told, would be the best snow in the area, and this was the only way down.
We were a party of six skiing at Alagna with our guide, Andrea Enzio, and two new friends we had invited to join us for the day.
We had donned our harnesses at the top of the cable car and, after a couple of drag lifts and a small, rocky scramble, had traversed a wide bowl to the edge.
Andrea belayed a rope to his skis stuck in the snow while some of us peered down again or had a nervous pee. Would it be better to let others go first or go early and get it over ?
The first person had the rope attached to his harness and stepped over the edge. I occupied myself with my camera: Andrea's legs in the foreground and, from almost directly above, the little figures of my friends.
Three down and it was my turn. I was shown how to release the karabiner and stepped to the edge. The start was a vertical broken cornice. Lean out, and don’t hold on to the rope... But I felt an instinctive need to hang on.
20 or 30 metres later I had to release myself from the security of the rope and stand waiting on the precipitous slope for the others to arrive. I am told that Andrea skied down (on Telemarks!), using an ice-axe merely to steady his initial entry, but I missed it. I was much too busy starting my descent.
Down below us the chute narrowed and dropped over an edge: a rocky plunge three or four hundred metres down to the glacier.
The snow was firm but soft enough to grip well. I’d like to say that we skied it but actually we side-slipped very, very carefully.
A little way down a turn was necessary to pass left above some rocks. It was too steep for a kick-turn so one by one we nerved ourselves and jump-turned.
Things were going well. I managed, precariously, to get out my camera and photographed the first two starting down the next pitch. (Below, Andrea took off his skis to help them out of the main couloir: an awkward few steps around a rocky ridge.)
The new chute rejoined the first further down. The entry was tricky. I thought I could let myself go a little and then catch myself again. The snow was suddenly icy... I hadn’t meant... my tips caught and I slewed around, looking for a moment straight up the slope as I fell backwards.
Both skis came off as I tumbled... Stop quickly or I’m dead. Feet below me, facing the slope... it was immediately obvious I couldn’t stop. Everything seemed to happen quite slowly. There were rocks below and part of my mind wondered if I was going to hit them. I pushed myself off the slope with my hands, putting my weight on my boot tips: the Giles Green self-arrest... They dug into the snow. Too much... I was flipped over, somersaulting backwards... Get feet below again: push slightly, this time only just off the snow... My boots bit: I just avoided another somersault, slowed and came to rest.
Held by the very tips of my boots I didn’t dare move.
Very carefully, I kicked a foothold.
I had fallen about 50 metres, tumbling over two broad rocks. I was 30 metres from the drop-off. I didn’t have a scratch.
Below me, when I dared look round, was Andrea holding my ski.
The others had seen him actually leaping down and across the slope - it was a race: who would get to our intersection point first, him or me? He did. Would he have stopped me? Perhaps, but I doubt it. It was a very steep slope.
As it was my pack had come open and my camera fallen out. Andrea was faced with two falling objects and wisely chose to stop my ski. My camera is now at the bottom of the cliff. Andrea looked when we got there but there was no sign.
Pentax are solidly built. If anyone finds it I hope they send me the film.
I think, though, it is set on a new course: carried in the frozen time-scale of the glacier as it grinds its slow passage; bearing unknowingly into the future its cargo of rocks, rubbish and old corpses.
That evening at dinner my friends toasted my escape from death and I thought of Giles Green, the Alpine Experience guide who taught me his method of self-arrest and made me practice it. He died two years ago from a brain tumour. I’m sorry I can’t write and tell him it worked.
Andrea, by the way, is a very good guide. I gave him a nasty moment but he gave us some great skiing. I’ll be back; after all, I haven’t skied all of the Victoria couloir yet.

I wrote all that some time ago. Later I realised that Andrea's race had been heroic. He could have been going to his death. I have never told him so, till now.
I don’t know if he has taken any clients down the face since. (I gather only one other guide had ever done so before). He had, himself, made the first snowboard descent, and that day may well have been the first on Telemarks. If so he didn’t tell us. Most extreme skiers die young, but I’m not one. I’ve never been back. Yet.
Recently I talked with someone Andrea guided last year. He too had looked across at Punte Victoria and he told me about an Englishman who fell.
It seems I am one of Andrea’s stories, as he is one of mine.

This has already been on another ski website, but last night at the UK maggot meet I was persuaded to put it on here. If you read it before and didn't want to read it again - why did you?

**Arno** · 12-12-2006, 04:58 PM

BUMP
cause this is a great read (hint to Snowballs - put TR in the title and it'll get more hits) and I'm very grateful for the lift home last night

**snowballs** · 12-12-2006, 05:09 PM

Thanks Arno - How can I change the title? It doesn't come up on "edit"

**Buster Highmen** · 12-12-2006, 05:16 PM

Sergio suggested we skip it. So we did.

**Arno** · 12-12-2006, 05:18 PM

Originally Posted by snowballs

Thanks Arno - How can I change the title? It doesn't come up on "edit"

I'm not sure you can. Anyway, we can keep bumping to get the story the attention it deserves

**MakersTeleMark** · 12-12-2006, 05:25 PM

Brilliant! Can you thread the line for us on the pic?

**InspectorGadget** · 12-12-2006, 05:27 PM

Nice write up of what sounds like quite an experience.

**frozenwater** · 12-12-2006, 05:38 PM

Great read! I took some liberty and added "trip report" to the title. Hope that's ok.

**Buster Highmen** · 12-12-2006, 05:43 PM

Originally Posted by frozenwater

Great read! I took some liberty and added "trip report" to the title. Hope that's ok.

Flaunteur!

**Hayduke** · 12-12-2006, 06:12 PM

Very well written D.

I second the suggestion to draw the line on the pic & post it back up.

& thanks for saving us the taxi fare last night!

**snowballs** · 12-12-2006, 07:07 PM

Thanks frozenwater - just what I wanted. Except it doesn't seem to have changed in the listing. (Ed: Oh now it has)

I took that photo several days before, after the helicopter drop. We landed on the highest snow on the extreme top right of the picture. The drop site was a 25º slope, so the heli rested the front tips of the skids on the snow and hovered.
"Best Pilot in the area" we had been told. Later we were told he had crashed 3 times. Once was when they had been building the Monterosa hut right on the top of the ridge. He had big timbers on the end of a cable under the heli and they caught on something. The heli crashed and cart-wheeled down the mountain and everyone assumed he was dead. Another time some locals built a helicopter and asked him to test fly it....

Not sure I can draw a line now. The peaks are so far away and at such an oblique angle in the photo I cannot identify the Victoria descent. Looking at the rough map in the off-piste guide book I think it must be just right of the peak on the left of the photo. Then we carried on down the glacier on the left side, after which the route isn't visible because of the nearer ridge. Unfortunately when they updated some of the lift system recently they took out a high drag lift which was hardly used except to access tough off-piste routes, so I think you would have to climb on skins to access it now.

On the extreme left of the photo is an easier (but still very tough) descent called "Malfatta" which hits the valley lower down. The lifts and the main resort skiing is behind that ridge. Top to bottom the lift-served resort is (or was) 7,700 feet vertical, but you can climb higher on skins to a Refuge.

Alagna used to be a purely off-piste resort, like La Grave, but since the season before last they have had a piste going down the middle of the main valley. The hard core all think the piste has ruined the resort, but they certainly get many more skiers from the other, linked valeys visiting, so the rather poor village is better off. (And there is still loads of good off-piste.)

The villages in the area are old and beautiful and have an architecture unique to the area and lovely Baroque churches and chapels (the bell of the Alagna church clock strikes all through the night). Too much Polenta in the local cuisine for my taste though.

**TBS** · 12-12-2006, 08:14 PM

Very well done. Way to set the bar for trip reports.

**rungsp** · 12-13-2006, 02:30 AM

Glad you posted this, and glad to have met The Author of a story I have told my friends about in the past.

**Hayduke** · 12-13-2006, 03:11 AM

I'm glad to have met the guy who makes money filling bathtubs with milk!

**snowballs** · 12-13-2006, 08:01 AM

OK, I've tried to put the route on the photo. I think it's right.

**snowballs** · 12-14-2006, 12:51 PM

Andea and his dog a few years ago.

Someone PMed to ask about Andrea. For anyone ese: he doesn't have a website but can be contacted through the Guiding Bureau in Alagna Tel: +39 0 163 91310 or I can give you his email if you PM me.