Pelerins Couloir, Chamonix, 26/12/16

[peds]

Just a quick one. Two years ago, my friend Joel and I went skiing on Boxing Day. The snow, on the whole, was as shitty then as it is now, but we went looking for something to ski anyway. We decided to ski the Rectiligne Couloir from the Grands Montets, a few hundred metres of 35 to 40 degree skiing, narrow enough, and with a little bit of dry skiing at the very top. Seeing as the winter hadn't started properly yet and the snowline was still pretty high, the descent down to Montenvers and the train back to Chamonix wasn't possible, so we had the idea of booting back up the Poubelles Couloir to the Bochard, and skiing the pistes home. In the couloir, we found boilerplate and breakable crust. About two thirds down, I fell over and bounced a few metres, spraining my shoulder. We agreed that this was bollocks. We switched to crampons and climbed back out the way we came, up to the Grands Montets cable car.

After a cold beer, a hot bath, and a bad night's sleep, my shoulder hurt a little worse, so I took it to the doctor.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he didn't say, but he was clearly thinking it. "Your shoulder is broken you idiot, you need surgery! Get to the hospital right now!" Six hours later, I was out cold on the table, having a few screws drilled into my humerus and the wound stapled closed.

This year, we thought we could do better. We had both spotted this couloir from the Midi lift, tucked away behind the Aiguille du Pelerins, and had wanted to go and have a look at it for a while. We knew that because of the low snow at the moment, the skiing ran out about halfway up, but I was confident we'd find some soft-ish snow, having been in a similar couloir a few doors down just a couple of days previous, on the way down from a bit of climbing on the Aiguille du Peigne. So we didn't summit, but we did get to ski something, and it's definitely one to go back to after a couple more storms.

Even after about five weeks of zero fresh snow in the Chamonix valley we still managed to ski something pretty good. It was a bit grabby in places so we couldn't really open up, but it sure beats staying at home with a goose-and-booze hangover. An awesome day out exploring new areas and not breaking my shoulder. Those are the best kind of days.

Video:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BOfIBOeBwG-/

Pictures, not many. Sorry.

Early morning light show on the Midi. It never looks as good on a screen as it does in your eyes. Just imagine a pretty sunrise you've seen in the past instead.


Joel stepping gingerly over the rocks and crust, plunging down into balls-deep facet holes with every third step. Slow going, but a great warm up. The Col du Plan and the north face of the Midi behind.


Joel taking his turn booting up the widest part of the couloir. It got much narrower...


Above me the couloir splits into two, both incredibly rocky, narrow passages, before joining again and getting a bit wider. Fuck it, we can't be arsed after the trials and tribulations of Christmas Day. We'll be back to ski the rest of it in the future.
That bottleneck below me is 189cm wide... ski length plus ten.


Joel enjoys some flat-light skiing under the menacing gaze of the Midi north face.


So, yeah, another couloir we didn't get to the top of. To go further would have required some fairly interesting mixed climbing and rappeling in places, so we bailed and skied. On the way down, we bumped into another two on their way up.
"Recognise them?" I asked Joel, when we were a hundred metres above them.
"Alex Pittin and Tony Lamiche," he replied. "Salomon guys."
They were armed with longer ropes and bigger axes, so they probably managed to ski the whole couloir. I hope so, it looks like a great bit of skiing if you could get higher. Hope they enjoyed our bootpack!

[klar]

Coverage looks shit. I admire your inspirational dedication!