I often forget how lucky I am to have the Aiguille du midi 10 mins walk from my house, but days like yesterday really remind me of what a big midi day can offer. I headed out with Ross Hewitt and Drew Tabke (of Freeride World Tour Champion fame) for a few laps off the top. Things are shaping up nicely for a good spring with the snow starting to bond to the steeper slopes well. We started of with a Glacier Rond to Salopar which is fun and interesting variation to the exit couloir which spits you out almost at the bottom of the West Couloir. Its bit of a faff at the moment with abseils and some tricky rock steps, to quote mr Tabke “I’ve never had to use a hand jam whilst skiing before”. Ultimately it was worth it for the steep, untouched pow turns and just for a bit of adventure too. Unfortunately Ross’s back gave out half way down that first run and me and drew thought we would have to jerry rig a ski zimmerframe out of our poles for the poor chap. He still made it down and displayed some good freeride skills hucking out the bottom but the pain was written all over his face throughout the second half of the run. We must have looked quite the picture in the lift station when I was trying to help him stretch his back out.
After this Ross called time but me and Drew were still going strong and wanted more so headed up to do the Cosmiques Couloir which was also in good nick and very rippable. We traversed back to the mid station again and decided it was probably still worth skiing some more so headed up again to check out the Rond. It was amazing how much it had been scrapped of after 60+ people had been down it and it was alot more sketchy that second time but got better the lower down we got. In the exit couloir we were both getting pretty bad leg pump (glad it wasn’t just me) and it felt pretty hard going. On the traverse back we dropped into the Para Face which, as always, provided some incredible skiing to get back to the tunnel. We managed to keep our skis on all the way to the road and then a friend gave us a lift back to town (cheers Tim). All in all a good day with many 1000′s of meters of descent with some really good snow, adventure and good company. Cheers boys.
Drew at the top of the Rond
sidestepping….
sidestepping after handjam.
coming off the first rap
we skied this bit of snow by mistake and had to hike out.
not doing bad for an old codger
the actuall traverse is above and right of ross
abseiling finished
me on the salopar
looking good
coming to the final cliff band
drew lead the way on the freeride bit
ross about to seal the deal with a straightline to compression.
Exiting the salopar
admiring our work
on the traverse
Cosmiques Couloir
Lower down in the cosmiques
Cosmiques exit.
Making Rond on the third lap
Glorious midi.
on the para face
