Dry powder despite the summer-like temperature!!!

As planned, we went back to the 4 Vallées. This time, we parked on the Verbier side to get a faster access to the top of the Mt Fort at 3330m. 

From there, we had a really terrific view of the backcountry that was accessible from the resort. 

There was literally thousands of tracks that were heading to the slackcountry. Even if there was that many tracks, we were not surprised to see most of the skiers hiring a guide even if there wasn't any major on the hazard for this run. The options that required just a little hike cut the number of skier drastically.

The nice visibility pushed us to head towards an area near the Mont Parrain. To get to this area we had to ski on a small ramp that has seen some sun and froze overnight. My Dad said it was one of the sketchiest place he has get himself into. I've certainly seen him skied with more confidence before!

We finally put our skins under a really hard sun. The temperature was well over 0degrees and it was really hot on the way up!

We kept on climbing and finally get to a north facing slope who had some nice and dry powder. Even if it wasn't deep, it was great to be able to get some nice soft turn in such a warm weather! 

We eventually made it to the top of the Rosablanche Glacier to realized we only had about an hour of so left before the lift closed. If we didn't make it in time to the lift in Nendaz to get back to Verbier, we would have about 70km to drive to get to our car! There wasn't any time for some pictures and I kept pushing my Dad to hurry up by telling him that he would have plenty of time to rest on the chairlift!

We eventually made the about 2000m vertical run in time and finally got to Verbier in time. 

We came back for more backcountry since we only scratch the surface of what was laying behind Verbier the following day. As we got closer to the top, we realized that we wouldn't be able to get the visibility we were hoping for. After waiting for about 1h15 for the cloud to burn off, we made the decision to stay inbound. 

The resort was certainly tracked since it hadn't snowed for days, but on the north facing slope the snow was dry and on the south facing, it was some nice warm and soft spring-like conditions. We moved around this big mythical resort and I was certainly impress by some of the lines that has been skied when the conditions were better. 

Hopefully, I will be able to ski it one day in some great powdery conditions! 

We aimed the following day to a smaller family-size resort named Champex-Lac located in a valley nearby Verbier. This small resort only features 2 chairlift and one draglift. For what it lack in infrastructure, it certainly compensate with it's great steep terrain. The run located just under the main chairlift is one of the longest steep fall line I've seen in a while. Since it is not straight north facing, the snow had been warmed and wasn't so good to ski. 

We then made our way to a nearby north facing slope located in the Val d'Arpette valley. We had to climb to about 2500m to find some dry powder since the weather had keep on being over 0 degrees in the past days. You certainly had to believe that it was still possible to find some dry powder higher up and my Dad and I were both surprise about the quality of the snow we found. 

The warm temperature from the past days has released multiple wet avalanche from slopes at all orientations and just a slight difference in the orientation of the slope was enough to make a difference from crust to dry powder.

Since we have stayed around Martigny for about a week, we figured it would be nice to try some new areas (even if there was plenty of terrain we hadn't skied around!) and we left to head towards Simplon Pass. 

Located in between Switzerland and Italy at about 2000m, we thought it might be a great place to give a try. I've also seen couple of tours that were starting from there. It took about 1h15 to get there from Martigny and we were………. really disappointed when we finally got there. 

Most of the snow has been wind hammered and the conditions looked really rock-solid. 

We agreed it wouldn't worth trying to give it a try and we drove to completely changed area and started our drive to leave the Pennine Alps and get to the Bernese Alps (just north from them). 

To get there, we had get the car on a train to travel under the mountain. There is a somewhat car-ferry service that travel from one valley to the other to save some long travel. It was the first time I tried that and it was really nice and cool! The 4-5 hours became a 25minutes train ride for only 20$!!!

As we got to the other valley, it was again very warm and we enjoyed a little snack under what now seemed a nice summer sun!

Hopefully, we are going to be able some nice snow around here. It had (apparently) snowed a tiny bit in the past days. 

We'll see what we can find!

Auf wiedersen

evans

Really nice introduction to the Swiss backcountry!!

It finally didn't snow much overnight.

The lack of overnight snow made us change our plan. After spending countless hours to see the backcountry opportunities in a radius of about 150km, my dad came up with a place he has seen in his previous travel around the area! Thanks Dad, but I would have taken your recommendation a few hours ago….!

We packed everything back in the car and head towards the Col de la Forclaz. This pass is located a few kilometres south of Martigny, CH and separate Switzerland from France. 

View Switzerland in a larger map

As we got there, the sun was high and shinning and there wasn't any trace of a recent storm. The skin track was fairly packed and wasn't hard at all to follow. As we climbed, I was fairly impress about the quantity of ski tracks around the skintrack. I started complaining (and didn't stopped until we get to the top) that it was probably the most tracked out backcountry place I've ever been! 

Really, THANKS Dad for your nice recommendation!!

As we got closer to the top, there was certainly way less tracks. We scouted a nice skiing face that was only 30m to traverse to and whichthat was totally untracked! It seems that most of the people that has made the trip up has skied down close to the skintrack not to get lost!

We finally took our skins off to find some really nice and dry powder all the way down and we skied straight back to the car. 

As we were taking a cold beer out in the sun, a bunch of 4 chamois came fairly close. 

Nice introduction to the Swiss backcountry!

Even if the snow was not deep, we figured it was good enough to say around for at least one more day. We finally made our mind to climb towards the Cabane Brunet which is located only 1000m (or 700m depending where you park, in our case, we didn't know the best place to park….) from the town of Lourtier, CH. 

The skin up is probably the easiest I've ever taken. It gently climbs up and the first thing you know is that you are standing next to the Cabane on a ridge with a terrific view of Verbier. 

We keep on climbing for a few hundreds meter to get to some really nice and untracked terrain. Again, it seems that most of the backcountry fellows are making their way down following the skintrack. We finally hit an untracked area without any problem despite the thousands of fellows or so that have made their way up to the Cabane Brunet before us!

Finally, it seems really easy to find some good stomping ground since the majority of the skiers are just wiggling next to the skintrack doing (really) short radius turns!

We again, had a blast skiing on top of some cold and steady powder. I guess I'm getting a bit more use not to get faceshots every turns. The snow is maybe not deep, but certainly really nice and smooth. 

The blue sky and the warm weather make me forget about freezing myself sleeping in a cooking shelter in Revelstoke!

To keep on going on our backcountry strike around the Alps Valaisannes, we aimed to the Col du Grand St-Bernard which is quite a classic around this area. We quickly understood that we wouldn't be the only one around there since the parking was already quite full at 8h30AM!

We followed the countless day tripper who, like us, were making there way up towards the Hospice du Grand St-Bernard. Don't worry, I didn't left my Dad at the Hospice.

As we were making our way up, the skiing really didn't looked interesting. On both side of the valley we were climbing was laying some really wind hammered snow. 

After a vertical climb of about 500m (and probably 5km of horizontal hiking) we finally got to the Hospice that used to train and give the reputation of the St-Bernard dogs as good mountain rescue dogs. 

We kept going pass the hospice and climb back on the italian side under a really harsh sun. 

On the way up, my dad never stopped complaining about how the snow was going to be shitty and how warm it was and so on….

  

I finally managed to have him climbed all the way up to the top of the mountain. The view was certainly stunning and he finally had to agree that he was glad to have made the climb since it was such a beautiful day. 

                                  

                                  

He finally had to agree that there was some much than expected snow on the way down!

I feel like this area is not what I would qualify as a great backcountry spot since you lose about 500m of vertical just traversing back to the car and it certainly doesn't hold the snow as much as some other area that we have previously visited. 

  

There wasn't calling for some better weather for the following day, so we thought it would be a great day to give a try to a resort. We headed towards Nendaz, which I've never heard before. 

Actually, Nendaz sits in the middle of the skiing complex called the 4 Vallées who consists of Verbier, Nendaz, Veysonnaz and Thyon. It now hadn't snow significantly for about 7 days and the conditions inbounds certainly were reflecting this lack of new fresh snow. 

 

We nevertheless toured around the resort and aimed for the shelter north facing slopes and found some ( ok, it was packed) nice powder. After exploring the resort, we finally has made a plan for our next skiing day. Just next from the top lift at the Mont Fort standing at 3330m we had a sneak peek at some untracked slopes that certainly pleased us!

I 'm pretty sure we have a plan for tomorrow!!!

Stay tuned!

evans