Petit gabizos

[rod9301]

I've been looking at this line for a few months, and it was either not enough snow, early on, or bad(good actually) weather, most of February and March.

10,000 ft peak with about 4,000 vertical, 3,000 of which on the main face, most of which over 40-45 degrees.

It's in the French Pyrenees, where I'm staying for a year, or maybe two.

So, last night, checked the weather, and it looked like a go.

5 am wakeup, and 7:30 start.

Access was easy, 20 minutes on dirt until I could put my skins on.

Followed by an hour and a half of sketchy skinning, right above a nasty canyon, where falling would have been a BAD idea.




Finally, on the face itself.

Views were ok.






Looking up, only another 2,000 feet to go.



Unfortunately, booting up was interesting, winter snow, and a lot of it, up to my knees and hips in places.

Of course, so decided to go light and I did not bring my verts, so I was wallowing at a rate of maybe 400 feet an hour.

This is after I was done congratulating myself on how fast I was skinning

Then it started to snow!

So, faced with the possibility of skiing in a whiteout, I decided to live to ski another day.

Time to thank again to the people that designed the g3 I ions to be adj easy to step in, since the place I picked to put my skis on was close to 50-degrees.

So, time for my first turn. Even though I was sinking to my thighs when climbing, it skied firm!

WTF?

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the lower half of the face had slid, so I was skiing on the avie bed or in the few area that did not slide.

The slides looked to be about 3-4 days old, when we had a warming event, and since then we had cold
weather, with more snow, so I was feeling good about the stability.

The face skied good, certainly compared to the wet breakable crust on the flat lower part.
The only thing that worked was to start my turn with a little jump, made again interesting by skiing next to the nasty ravine.

Glad to have attempted it, and kind of anxious to try it again later this week, with verts this time.

And this might be my next project.

[rod9301]

Btw, is there a way to edit a post?

[AKbruin]

Nice job. It's interesting to see the mountains in a part of the world that I know nothing about.

I feel like 25-33% of my backcountry missions end in failure--e.g., not totally skiing the thing I wanted to ski. Not that they such failures are necessarily bad days out. But they make the instances in which everything goes to plan that much sweeter.

As for the edit feature, there should be an "Edit Post" button at the bottom of your post, just to the right of the "Reply" and "Reply With Quote" buttons. See the image below. Of course, you need to be logged in to see it.

[Mafiaverde]

Nice one man! You'll get on the top next time

I wonder why you went for the face by its steep orientation. The "regular" way (at least the one we did), is to get to the ridge on your left from the Col du Soulor and to stay on it to the top. It's a bit more aerial and will require more stuff to carry but definetly less exhausting for sure.

Just curious, what are you doing in the Pyrénées?

[rod9301]

I looked at the ridge on the south side of the face, but it was cloudy and a bit foggy, and I wasn't sure of the difficulties. What do you mean more stuff to carry?

I'm in luz saint sauveur for a year, actually two now, to ski, climb and mountain bike, and to get my kids to learn French(they are in school here).
Mid February to end of March I had the best skiing of my life, incredible terrain and no people. Plus it snowed almost every day.

[Mafiaverde]

sorry, just I didn't know the vocabulary. I meant sling, ropes & picks (is that correct?). Anyway, if you're alone, it is better to do the way you did.

http://www.skisylvio.com/spots/2008/...zos/index.php3

This guy is well known in the area for its touring.

Hope you're enjoying your stay here, it is quite of an idea to go to Luz as an American!

[summit]

nice

[rod9301]

This is a couloir in the ski area, campana peak, about 1000 ft vertical, 45+ degrees, middle peak in the picture.




Untracked heavy powder.

Pictures below, looking up and down from the middle of the couloir.







Skiing was not the best, but I'm more for the line than the snow.

Many more like this one. Which is why I'm staying another year.

[klar]

cool pics from a seldom seen region. how was the season in general in the pyrenees? i've been getting conflicting reports...

[rod9301]

Klar, great December, not great January, then February and March were the best months of my life, lots of powder and nobody skied off piste. We were skiing couloirs in untracked powder days after a storm.

Still great now, I'm ticking off the 34 couloirs I counted in my ski area, bareges.

[rod9301]

Skied this short couloir last Friday, steep and narrow, great snow. The peak in the background, thin snow line.

Then today, a bit of hiking for some great turns

[rod9301]

Not sure why the photos don't show, trying again.

I give up.

[Buster Highmen]

I keep reading 'Petit Gazibos. '

Dylsexics Untie!

[rod9301]

More skiing

[klar]

Still looks like decent coverage, is that recent?

[rod9301]

All the pictures are taken in the last week or so.

I skied a steep couloir today, frozen solid at 10:30. Good jump turn practice.

Looks like above 1900 m there will be snow for a while, and no sun cups yet.

I'm still skiing 3 days a week, this is delaying my climbing and mountain bike season.

[klar]

I'm still skiing 3 days a week, this is delaying my climbing and mountain bike season.

Nice and I'm jealous. Bad weather here...