Phil Ingle

Back on the Eissassa Rog and I spotted some likely lines over on the Peouvou. Rog was most keen on the left hand line, but we didn’t know if it went through the cleft in the rocks. I was after the right hand couloir with the S at the top.

As we approached it became obvious that there was rock in the narrow section on the line that I wanted, which it wouldn’t be possible to ski past, more snow needed. And then the left hand line didn’t go at all, the cleft in the rock narrowed to about 50cm for a long way, and had some rock in it.

So we settled on the middle line, which was actually a really nice aesthetic line, pretty straight, leading right onto the apron at the bottom, more sheltered from the wind so good snow. In the middle section it got quite steep (well 50 degrees) and the snow was a bit poor. All the rocks had turned a lot of it to depth hoar, a real pain to climb up.

Rog ran out of steam at this point and decided to wait here, while I carried on up to the top. This time round I did have my down jacket so could have hung around at the top for a while, but the wind was incredible. And there was a cloud sat over the summit stopping the snow from transforming, so there was no benefit, so I had a quick turn around and headed back down.

The top section was 50° for a short while, and narrow, 196cm in one place (tips and tails touching). Then it opened out and the best part of the first half was good snow on a 40° to 45° slope. Rather than go down through the rocky bit I had come up through, I headed out skiers right in the middle and went round some rocks before traversing back into the couloir. This was the steepest bit at a few degrees over 50°. The whole lower section of the couloir was then bob on 45° right onto the apron.

After the couloir there was still another 700m of descent down the Beal de Parouart, down fantastic spring snow. Then a one and a half k walk back to the car through Maurin and Maljasset.

I have not been able to find any reference to this line having been skied before, but I dont have any Haut Ubaye experts to ask. If it is a first descent I would like to call it Couloir McConkey after the skiing legend who died tragically the day beforehand.

Here is a map of the descent

download it to view in Google Earth