this and that.
Another few days off work in the land of nod. Nothing special, everything normal. The routine. I am pretty broke so no after skiing naked chicks dancing at the moo-bar or elevation …
storm powder day crowd.
niclas ferin
Sam Favret
sam favret
in the cosmique with Davide demasi
in the cosmique with Davide demasi
in the cosmique with Davide demasi
epaule du tacul with ross hewitt
epaule du tacul with ross hewitt
epaule du tacul with ross hewitt
a midwinter spleen
Things didnt assembled as planned for this season so i find myself with 5 € to spent this month and the few next. I am Stuck Working a night job only 3 nights a week. That means no coffee, no drugs, no booze… Sounds healthy and happy? Well, it is not ukraines or anything but all of a sudden i dont have any distractions. I see everything as it is- #no filters. And I have plenty of time to reminice…
I miss dwelling in my van . In the desert along the 395 desert rd. Driving up and down, choosing the best mountain. Skin up it. Lunch at the top and ski down. Drink a 6 pack . Find a sweet spot to park and watch the sunset. Go to bed . Repeat. Simple.
I miss the sierra rythme as well. In chamonix , it seems everyone is in a rush always. It is a perpetual rush hour. Everyone loves to be in the mountains but rushes to be back in town by 2pm. Faster, more runs, laps laps laps. There is the february crowd, the march crowd. sometime it is too much. More more more. Faster. Faster.
On the 395 desert road, you get to the base , skin up. Spent quality time at the top just chilling , eating drink a beer maybe. Enjoy time. Slow pace. Then ski. Get back to the car , drink a six pack…watch the sunset.make a fire. Sleep. repeat.
i miss the hot tubs
i miss the joie de vivre, the leisure class. the simplicity of it all.
rant- {In cham everyone is a prorider. You go ski your run fast, meet at the bar. Talk about the gear and your respectives hashtags. Go home , post a picture of that couloir, that radical rap…hashtag-me hashtag-me hashtag-me..thanks this thanks that oscar acceptence speech…all the identical hashtags “like” the picture. Instant gratification. Hashtag is happy.the cult of self. self importance. People are hashtags. Skiing is a vector. Greedy, vain and ambitious skiing personalities (riders,filmers,photographers,industry) are dominating the chamonix ski scene more and more. This is the celebration of Image over substance, of illusion over truth. This is not why I started skiing. In fact, this could be why I stop. or move…
Skiing lost its soul. Everybody is a prorider, a film maker , an actor , a model. Not for creativity, to share a vision or experience but to promote their hashtags. Skiers became live billboard.”The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” . It feels like walking down hollywood boulevard at 2 am. Except on hollywood blvd there is always the dude with a bottle of wiskey in one hand a cig in the other, the pocket filled with all type of gear. Its comforting to know the dude is there….}-end of rant.
Anyway, tmrw is another perfect powder day…
Foehn week and the Föhnkrankheit
A Föhn or Foehn is a type of dry, warm, down-slope wind that occurs in the lee (downwind side) of a mountain range.
It is a rain shadow wind that results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air that has dropped most of its moisture on windward slopes (see orographic lift). As a consequence of the different adiabatic lapse rates of moist and dry air, the air on the leeward slopes becomes warmer than equivalent elevations on the windward slopes. Föhn winds can raise temperatures by as much as 32 °C (58 °F)[1] in just a matter of hours.
Winds of this type are also called “snow-eaters” for their ability to make snow melt or sublimate rapidly. This snow-removing ability is caused not only by warmer temperatures, but also the low relative humidity of the air mass having been stripped of moisture by orographic precipitation coming over the mountain(s).
Föhn winds are notorious among mountaineers in the Alps, especially those climbing the Eiger, for whom the winds add further difficulty in ascending an already difficult peak.
Anecdotally, residents in areas of frequent föhn winds report illnesses ranging from migraines to psychosis. The first clinical review of these effects was published by the Austrian physician, Anton Czermak in the 19th century.[2] A study by the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München found that suicide and accidents increased by 10 percent during föhn winds in Central Europe.[citation needed] The causation of Föhnkrankheit (English: Föhn-sickness) is yet unproven.
la palud, italy, mikka merikanto
la palud italy
la palud, italy
minna riihimaki
luca pandolfi
la palud, italy, Nikolai Schirmer
la palud, italy, nathan wallace
nathan wallace
la palud italy, ross hewitt
la palud
Tof Henry, Ollie Herren, Seth Morrison
luca pandolfi, Davide Capozzi
nathan wallace , tom burt
nathan wallace , tom burt, luca pandolfi
Seth Morrison, Ollie Herren, glen Morden
Seth Morrison, Ollie Herren, Nathan Wallace
just another 50 and its perfect.
Again i went to the midi with no specific plans or partners. I ended up following Oli and Hugo. A sweet run down granver. james bonding it back to cham, That is sweet. Then a rond to les bossons exit which needs another 50cm layers of snow to be perfect …I could have done a third run, Im working tonight so i had to go take a nap.
Oli Herren
Hugo Harrisson
Hugo Harrisson
Hugo Harrisson
FWT
powder day
7am. I go thru my usual world wide web morning lurking. Nate sends ” ah? so? probably stay local today. ” Ok . GM then. Meeting point sole boot with seth, nicklas and olli, Nate. I will pick them up at 8.30. Sharp. I go thru my morning routine. head to my garage. The cham sud apt complex is a huge maze and i can’t find my fuckin car. Remember REMEMBER…maybe it is stolen or maybe brett took it to geneva. For 30 min all kind of fantasy fly around whilst i aimlessly walk around the maze. I can’t find it. Its a powder day, i will worry about it later. I forget my transceiver and go to sole boot, vaguely explain the situation. We end up in brevent which will not open until way later. Rosenbarger , clark, hagen are here and we all patiently wait at the bergerie restaurant listening to soft house music, drinking coffee, talking shit, dancing, enjoying the scenics…until its too long. The hagen crew split. we wait. 11 am. they open. we go up. “UP” looks wind effected with a reasonable amount of snow …Nate , olli, seth ski the ENSA-link. Me Nicklas and Daves’s crew will ski the next one over-link. It was good, i didn’t take any pictures. I was a little stressed out. I could not erase the picture i took of Martin widen’s last turn in that same zone a year ago, precisely. My camera is in my bag the all way. Rosenbarger triggers a few small slabs here and there on a over all pretty good powder run. Olli got sluffed out by incoming skiers in the ensa. Lost a few things on the way but ready for a run up the midi. I get my transceiver and glacier kit. Head to midi. Everything looks wind fucked , we head to the rond-link . After hearing olli and rosenbarger making that heinous scratchy sound at the top of the rond and the bottom not looking that much better, nicklas and myself opted for a soft exit down the gros rognon flat glacier hoping to find soft goods. it was all enjoyable despite being wind fucked. Back at moo bar with nachos, beer hearing all the epic stories of people getting stuck, sloughed out, or having to do 3 raps in a forrest run. Every one is back alive. Rosenbarger’s crew call me from the tunnel asking if my car keys are near my car. My car being at the tunnel and they need a ride back in town. I FOUND MY CAR. Great day.
2 days in la palud
So it was overcast, snowy at time, not very good for pictures and the skiers were too fast. I don’t have many riding pictures. i skied with seth morrison (who is becoming a local. ) , met another legend tom burt –link. And hang out/skied with a lot of good friends,old, new , locals and not. So, a lot of hanging out pictures. This is what we do mostly, hang out. we ski epic runs in between, but really, we hang out. Its awesome!
tof
glen
glen
tof
first powder day
It felt like the first powder day.The vibe. The aiguille du midi isn’t my own private resort anymore. The fixed ropes are up and today everybody is here. Not many tourists yet: All familiar faces, riders, friends. All Here for the “grande mess ” to celebrate skiing and enjoy powder snow. It is nice too. I like it. I was not with anyone nor did i have any plans. I’m just going with the flow. At top it was hectic, i hate those fixed ropes. I decided to follow the wallace prod crew. But ..err…seth morrison and Tof decided to straight line the entire run. It was cloudy, i couldn’t take any pictures. The second run was a white out, my goggles froze , i regained orientation somewhere alone in the middle of the valley.I then found thor. I took a bunch of shots whilst waiting.
seth morrison
dusan benes
L’ Epaule du tacul
It is Brett last day so I had to motivate despite the growing death in me, I’m coughing my lungs out. We didn’t go too far and luckily the US/CAN pro team in town had already carved the steps for us. Easy up, easy down. Fresh powder, scenics and sun…perfect. My coughing isn’t better, WTF.
brett lotz
brett lotz
The mission
Our mission today was to take the bus to la palud, ski the marbree then go back to chamonix thru the vallee noire. sounds easy. It made more sense to take the bus than drive one car, then another to pick it up. good for the environment, especially knowing the pollution disaster chamonix is. I feel guilty sometime to drive there so often just to go ski knowing there is a bus. BUT, don’t feel guilty: the first bus is at 8.30 AM (you get there at 9.30) , a little too late for any powder day and pretty sketchy to ski anything gigantic south facing. Also, it is not free anymore for pass holders and it is not cheap: 14 euros one way. It doesn’t even stop at la palud anymore which DOESNT make any SENS: it passes by it and there is a huge parking lot. It means you have to wait for the ski bus in courmayeur to take you back up the same way.LUDICROUS. Bottom line: drive your own car, don’t fuckin carpool, make sure it runs with cold diesel or coil maybe.
It was also too hot to ski marbree, it didn’t feel right. We later heard the toula glacier avalanched and buried 5 people. They were rescued and safe, we made the right choice. the vallee noire was perfect, silky. kindda flat light which made it scenic and mystic but not photogenic!
the bus ride
Anatomy of a powder day with Nate wallace and Brett Lotz
we started in la palud Italy. Skied 3 runs but then it got too crowded so we went back to the midi.
aiguille du midi opening with Andreas fransson, David Rosenbarger , Miles Smart and Elizabeth Oakes Smart
Every year, the midi opening is a real treat. An easy adventure . I had to work the night before so the motivation was not there but when Andreas called me at 12 i got up and was geared up at the midi by 12.30. This year with the lack of snow and a bad layer at around 2500M we opted for the grand enver. It was dream powder for about a third of the run, the rest was hard snow or rocky. We finished the day at sole boot lab for some quick fix
Durier
Despite the current low tide, i was lured to the idea of spending a couple of days deep in the mountains, which didn’t happen for what seems a century. It is Bruno Compagnet bday. So we went with minna Riihimaki and Julien Casagrande. We opted for the wild and far away dome de miage area. The mountains out there are dry and feeling hostile at time …The plan des glaciers refuge is among my favorite one , cozy and comfortable in a wildly scenic area. The 2 days were well spent with good people…dolce vita. the skiing marginal.
the hike to plan des glacier refuge
le refuge plan des glaciers
the durier couloir
scratching the last remnant of a faraway storm
I can’t remember when it snowed last. We can still ski long runs under a nice sunny sky, good scenics and a bunch of characters so it is all good.
Cedric Bernardini 