Bit o this, Bit o that!

Over the past month I've been doing lots of skiing and also the first rock route of the year.

I had the best day of the season at the start of Febuary over at Hellbroner, which is on the Itailian side of the Massiff. I went through with Fluer and Graham in Graham's car, which only had one working door to climb in and out off. Okwardly it was the back door! Graham suggeted that we should do the Marbrees. As we arrived at the carpark we met two of grahams friends, Andy & Fred.

So all five of us got we got the three lifts up to the top station, then from here we skied along the top plataeu for a bit then boot packed around for 20mins untill we reached the top of the Marbrees.

The view was awesome from the top, and from here we had 2000m of sheer bliss!

My Dad (Gav) was out over the past two weeks as well, so I got to do some classic stuff with him. Likes of l'aiguillette des Houches, Cosmiques Arete, Berard valley (I sort of ditched him to ski the Mort Glacier with Graham and Andy then met Gav half way down the valley), Col du Tour Noir, and an amazing day rock climbing on the Tour des Crouchues.

That day on the tour des Crochues was awesome we skied from the top of Flegere to the base of the wall then changed from ski boots into rock shoes. The route was called 'Atome Croche' and is 5 pitches of varied climbing. After the first two pitches you have to cross a gully of snow which ain't much fun in rock shoes and bare hands.

I used a pair of shoes called the 'Lynx', they're a new pair of shoes that Boreal sent me. They're a lace up with a bit of stiffness under the toes for edging but soft enough to get the full benefit from the new zenith rubber.

On Friday Josh and Myself went for a wee tour to the Breche du Tacul for a bit of couloir skiing. The Breche du Tacul is situated on the Aiguille du tacul in front of the Grandes Jorasses.

It was a easy tour up from the Geant falls to the start of the boot pack up to the Breche. You head up as if your going for the Capucin Couloir, then break out rightwards over snow and mixed ground, 100m before the Capucin Couloir. We actually ended up 50m to the right of the Breche du Tacul but this was fine as we were able to ski down a couloir that joins onto the main part of the Breche du Tacul couloir.

I really enjoyed this small amount of steep skiing and would like to do a bit more of it, even though I said this is something that I didn't fancy. It's just another part of skiing, the same way bouldering, trad and alipne is to climbing.