A week of ski touring with Tom, from a rather comfortable base in La Bâtie des Vigneux near Briançon (thanks, Hares!). Mostly day tours with one overnight in the Queyras.
Day 1: Resort skiing at Puy-Saint-Vincent (Ecrins). For Dave, first time on new skis. For Jo, first time skiing powder and not just falling over all the time, and first real tree skiing…
Day 2: Avoiding avalanches at Col du Chardonnet, from Pont d’Alpe (near Mont Thabor).
On the ridge, just about managing to stay below the cloud
A summit of sorts
Time to go down
Tracks, and sunshine! Powder at the top, crustier on the flat
Further down
Day 3: Queyras. Pont de Lariane to Refuge Agnel, via Pointe des Sagnes Longues. Leaving the car…
On the plateau above Torrent de Clausis, heading for the skyline to the left of the square rock
It was a long, hot way up! Passing Le Rouchon
Summit ridge
Ready for the descent
On the way down Tom decided we’d follow some interesting-looking tracks heading off to the right. They led us down through this bowl and to the top of a rather steep (for me) gully…
Probably my most interesting ski to date (so glad I learnt how to do short turns in Jan)
Dave making it look not that easy! After this, we traversed down to the main valley and rejoined the track up to the Refuge Agnel.
Day 4: Tour of the Pain de Sucre from Refuge Agnel. Catching up the next group on the Col Vieux
We decided to make a detour to the Rocca Rossa, which is out of sight over the col
Taillante slabs to the left
Tom breaking trail (nobody had been here at least since the snowfall a few days before)
I think the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa are in the distance somewhere
Traversing beneath Pain de Sucre
Tom reaches the ridge
We’re not too far behind
Monte Viso looking splendid
Us on the summit ridge (sans skis)
Wonderful skiing down – I didn’t get a very good picture of the tracks which is a shame as I was rather pleased that Dave couldn’t tell which were his and which were mine
Heading for the Brèche de Ruine
An ascent to the Col d’Asti (third col of the day) followed, then a ski down the Italian side on spring snow, which apparently Dave and I didn’t know what to do with
Col Agnel
The road from Italy (and Viso again)
Skiing back out to the car – a good view of the gully we descended the day before
Day 5: Dave was recovering from his exertions so Tom took me on a wild goose chase up the Clapouse valley from Ailefroide (Ecrins). First challenge was crossing the stream
Our high point, after quite a lot of clambering around in steep forest
The descent was icy too (with a bit of breaking crust), but at least the view was nice
As we were back by lunch, there was time for a saunter up the local protuberance behind La Bâtie des Vigneux
L’Argentière la Bessée
The Durance river
Day 6: Pointe des Marcelettes (Queyras). Setting off from Saint-Véran
Torrent de Curlet
Steep skinning (I only took photos on the flat bits)
Dave managed to lose some binding screws, but employed various means to carry on regardless
Dave and the summit ridge we’d traversed, looking towards Italy
Still powder to be found in places
A final interesting section (which I sideslipped)
Tom taking the more aesthetic route
Day 7: Wet! We got out for a walk round Briançon before it got too bad.
Yellow Van Mountaineering 