La Grave Xmas Photo TR

[bad_roo]

Click-whirr-clunk. Silence. This wasn’t the best possible start to a road trip. You select your six favourite CDs for the journey, load them into the changer and then nothing. No play, no eject, just an infuriating mechanical churning and an impotent flashing light. Time to get angry. Hammering the eject button as if it was part of a Track And Field game wasn’t cutting it. It was time to start belabouring the dashboard with a boot. A few initial clouts and the car saw the writing on the wall, disgorging the discs as we entered the car ferry. Who’s the fkn daddy now?



The 600 mile journey down through France otherwise passed without too much event. The BBC were reporting that a Richter scale 6.5 earthquake near Indonesia had killed 9 people. Obviously a slow news day. A phone call to Mulletizer up in La Grave caused us a bit of worry when he asked if we had snow chains, promising us a bit of fun if we didn’t. Suddenly turning down the Citroen with traction control in favour of a SEAT with electric ass warmers was starting to look a rather indulgent decision. As we climbed up the hill into the Romanche valley, more and more locals were pulling over to fit chains. I got more and more stink eye from Mrs Roo for failing to buy any. The road up to La Grave isn’t too severe and we got there with only a little bit of slithering. Hauling our bags up to Mulletizer’s apartment wasn’t the easiest, my sea-level, desk jockey lungs finding the ‘Couloir Castillan’ a bit of a slog with 100lbs of bag slung over my shoulder.

Mulletizer and his girlfriend Marina had patiently refrained from eating the goat’s cheese quiche they’d made for us. I had a bite and then crashed. The plan for the next day had been to take an acclimatisation day at Alpe d’Huez, but given that there had been over a foot of snow the previous evening, that plan was ditched. After Mulletizer had a game of ski domino toppling at the base station, we headed up the La Grave gondola. Mrs Roo was looking a little apprehensive, but her Nordica W105s seemed the right tools for the job and the Vallons de la Meije was full of shin deep creamy goodness. Mulletizer was annoyingly quick on his alpine setup and Marina wasn’t hanging around either, having been an instructor at Verbier for some years.

Avy risk was fairly high with many of the lee slopes and steep sides of the couloirs looking rather dodgy. Only the previous week Mulletizer had chanced upon a skier buried 2m deep at the bottom of the Banane Couloir. I could tell he was still a little wary as a result of what he’d witnessed but there was still plenty of good skiing to be had, even if we had let the first of the ‘avalanche poodles’ nab first tracks. A huge fracture line below the Breche Pacave indicated that even some apparently benign slopes had the opportunity to bite hard.

The infamous La Grave traverses were a bit of an education for Mrs Roo, being rather stony. At one point I managed to do the splits, railsliding the lower ski across a semi-buried tree root. Mrs Roo was soon demonstrating an almost Ripzalot capacity for rockfinding. Show her a 100m wide slope and she could uncannily home in on the biggest rock available and give it a sound clack. As Mulletizer pointed out, at La Grave all skis are rock skis, especially so in the early season. Last laugh proved to be on her when I found a boulder and felt a sharp pain in my right knee. I sat there for a minute wondering how much it would hurt when I stood up, but the pain wasn’t unbearable and I got down to P1 and lifted down to the resort. To make matters worse, an excess of goat’s cheese had given me a rather horrible case of rusty water.

It was gimp central for me the next day. I sat indoors reading and rubbing Ibuprofen gel on the gammy knee while the others skittered over the Col du Lautaret in Mulletizer’s Citroen AX and blasted the pistes at Serre Chevalier. Mrs Roo managed to christen her new Public Enemies on an enormous boulder, leading to a double ejection misty. Mulletizer went shopping at Aldi in Briancon, leaving the girls to get lost on the hill at Serre Che, and he returned with the near mythical Plumpy. It even put down another six inches of snow in the resort that evening. Result.

Another day at La Grave, another load of fresh snow to plunder in the glades. Many of the tree shots were filled with knee-deep untracked snow, although your teeth were always set on edge by the prospect of a good wallop against the local geology. That evening was spent learning a few ski tuning tips from Mulletizer after Mrs Roo managed to excavate a decent sized hole in the base of one of her skis.

The final day was spent lazing around, preparing for an afternoon’s skiing on the sunny side of the valley up at Le Chazelet. Unfortunately we were a little to dedicated in our lazing and managed to head out of the door at 4pm, at which point the light had gone and the lifts were closing. Oops. We did get a fun road run down from Les Terrasses back to La Grave with some of the lightest snow of the trip in the few turns at the top. The fact that both Mulletizer and I skied it with our boots undone was a jong move but it was still enjoyable. After a pizza we headed back to the apartment for the Scottish delicacy of deep fried Mars Bars. They were surprisingly good although Mulletizer’s flatmate’s suggestion of teaming them with vanilla ice cream and a dusting of cinnamon would have really done the business. Glisseur turned up later that evening having driven from Sweden.

The SEAT decided to have some fun and games on the way back, with the drivers seat getting stuck in one position and the windscreen wipers packing up totally. Driving up a French autoroute at 80mph in a storm with no wipers tends to focus the mind a little. I was starting to hate this car. My mood wasn’t helped by the stench of Reblochon cheese that was filtering out of one of Mrs Roo’s shopping bags. It was either that or my ski socks but it was damn funky and not in a good way.

Thanks a million to Mulletizer and Marina for putting us up and tooling around the mountain with us. Looking forward to seeing you guys again in a few weeks time. Props to Mrs Roo too for having a blast one of the Alps’ most intimidating mountains.


Mrs Roo at the top of the Vallons.


Emerging from the trees at P1.


Mulletizer's Monsters blaze a trail down the Vallons.


Le Rateau peeks through the clouds.


Here's one for the 'Entrance Pics' thread. The drop from the Ruillans hut onto the Glacier de la Girose.


Henceforth known as Mrs Gnar.

[bad_roo]

Mrs Roo rockfinds the top section of the Vallons


Cruising the spine of the moraine looking for a good drop-in


The view across the Glacier de la Girose


The sun makes a belated appearance at Peyrou d'Aumont


Last run of the day through downtown La Grave


Maximum attack Marina

[bad_roo]

Grand Pic de la Meije


Some gapers find their way to the entrance of Couloir Banane


The road run from Les Terrasses boneyard.


Mrs Roo and Marina above the clouds


Mulletizer flagrantly ignores local traffic regs to schralp the Couloir Castillan


I heart Plumpy.

[bad_roo]

Mulletizer's apartment has character


Just the job for those jaded by the festive season


Mrs Roo practices prussiking.


Brownmonkey - where are you?


She can cook too.


Mulletizer fails to look wholly convinced by the deep fried Mars Bars.

[Trackhead]

Nothing like having a graveyard at the bottom of a run.

[backpack]

excellent!

[iskibc]

Thanks for posting. Great pics, good read, and looks like some fun skiing. I gotta try the Mars bars thing.

[lph]

Wow roo, nice pics, nice TR. You definitely have some beautiful shots there. Guess you must really like that new camera.

[hardrider]

Some of those shots are incredible. thanks for posting.

[iceman]

Some of those shots are incredible. thanks for posting.

Ditto on the nice shots.

But what's a SEAT?

[Mrs Roo]

It's worth reiterating what a great couple Mulletizer and Marina are. Mr Mullet is full of energy and encouragement. He's only too happy to show nervous nelly's like me around and reassure me that I'm not the biggest gaper on the mountain. GET THAT MAN A FLIGHT TO JACKSON!!!!!

Marina RIPS!! She's a smart girl who was great to tear around Serre Che with. I also learnt a great recipe for tartiflette! What could be better. Thanks again, you two.

(BTW I wasn't the biggest gaper in La Grave. There were three others worse than me. My self respect is intact!! Mind you, that's one hell of an intimidating mountain, gaper or not!)

to the mullets!

[Keoni]

I think I am going to go call DHL and crate myself in a large wooden box. Can I borrow a shipping address?

[truth]

What...no lost luggage, no stair incidents, no fat man pizza stories? I'm rather dissapointed. I can't believe you were able to catch santa on the balcony above the food emporium...again. Wish I was headiing that way this season...but alas...the month of feb on the road in the rockies in an M3 is too tough to pass up. We'll see if blizzaks and traction control are really worth a piss. You're heading to Jackson Hole right?

[truth]

Ditto on the nice shots.

But what's a SEAT?

It's very much like a SKODA.

[gramps]

Wow, sweet TR and pictures. Almost makes me want to go to Europe.

[truth]

Wow, sweet TR and pictures. Almost makes me want to go to Europe.

Almost...you have issues, don't go to yurp...it's much better in pictures than in reality.

[The Reverend Floater]

Seriously fucking awesome, Roo! I gots to get out there soon. Great TR!

[brownmonkey]

Mrs Roo practices prussiking.

Err... Why is Mrs. Roo's ass plugged into the mains?

[bad_roo]

Some sections of the glacier were looking pretty choppy.


Niki Lauda skied by us while we were down at the bridge. That's 6,000 vert of freshies even without the top surface lifts open.

truth - I was pretty much taking it easy this time round so as not to alarm Mrs Roo. I should imagine there will be much more idiocy come January 22nd.

[bad_roo]

Err... Why is Mrs. Roo's ass plugged into the mains?

It needed a trickle charge.

[Ripzalot]

19 days and counting.

[verbier61]

F K N A........

S U P E R B P I C S !!!!!!


if only we in verb had half of the snow you got at LG****

[supercastor]

Nice TR
wasn't sure if LG had got many snow, looks like it won't be enough, but you got here at the right time, P1 with this much snow down the trees, erh, fair enough

But my main concern here is... did mulletizer enchanted you with his world famous recipe of dishwasher salmon?

[edg]

Nice! I have some pics etc., but they pale in comparison... It was pretty rocky at Les Arcs...

edg

[Meathelmet]

Titties.
Nice pics!


I think i caught a glimpse on Roos entourage at the Langleybar when we were leaving it.Too bad i wasnt sure if it really was you...Too much sambuca.


La Grave was truly a rockyard. Counted 14 coreshots from my skis...
Serre was not that much better either, but with a lot more snow.
Montgenevre was almost unskiable (exept the pistes), Le deux ice and
Alpes de huez was rock and ice.
Monte Rosa area was good for couple of days untill winds blowed it to a giant skating rink...