Business as usual – Breche Du Tacul

Lorne Enjoying some good snow on the Leschaux Glacier with the north face of the Grandes Jorasses in the background..

Its days like these that remind me why I live in Cham.  It feels so good to be back out ripping around the mountains again.  Yesterday myself, Rob Stokes, and Lorne Cameron headed up for the Breche du Tacul.  This isn’t the first time that I have skied this route but I had such a good day on it last time around I knew it would be a good day again.  Its been a week since the last snowfall and its been warm in Cham since so a lot of the snow has been destroyed by the sun.  The couloir that you ski on the Breche Du Tacul faces almost directly east so fortunately the sun softens the snow up enough in the morning to make the skiing very pleasant.  With an easy skin, bootpack and some fun easy mixed climbing up to the Breche this route is constantly interesting and even held the interest of Rob who has the attention span of a Gnat.  When you get to the Breche you need to traverse along the ridge to the left about 20m and the couloir drops down the East face and joins into the Breche Puiseux descent.  After skiing the Couloir (45degrees for 350M) we hit the upper Leschaux Glacier and found some weird but fun snow back to montenvers.  All in all a great day had by all followed by that special kind of tired and satisfied that only a day in the Mountains can bring.

Showing the line to take on the way up to the Breche. The Low point is the Col du tacul and the breche sits a bit higher on the right.
The Team on the way up the bootpack.
Rob putting in some turns near the Top, we had to downclimb into the couloir about 30-40 feet as the snow was a bit hard near the top.
Lorne Catching some air near the bottom of the couloir.