Phil Ingle

Posts Tagged ‘5.2’

Back up to Ceillac with Seb. It was even colder than yesterday. From the top lift you can traverse across to start skinning, but it was so cold that we skied a bit further down so that we could put our skins on in a patch of sunlight.

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Seb and I headed up today to have a go at this couloir. It was really cold. really really cold. That was the overriding theme of the day, the cold. We did good speed on the skin up, and in the sun it was OK, but once we got in the shade, no matter how fast you went you didnt stay warm without lots of layers.

We were not sure whether to do the central couloir or the north couloir. On the approach the north one looked good, and as it is the classic line we decided to go for that one first. Read the rest of this entry »

Having done the Heart of the Rond (the French call it the ’salopar’ or bitch) a few times we thought that there was a potential route down the ridge to the skiers left. The Heart of the Rond is a nice line, but it involves about 60m of descending a couloir that is about 180cm wide, so a sideslip with tips and tails touching all the way, followed by a small drop which is never nice.

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The 3306m Brèche Nonne Evêque is the obvious thin couloir in the center of the first picture.

First skied by Jean-Marc Boivin on the 21 April 1984. Anselme Baud’s Mont Blanc and the Aiguilles Rouges: A Guide for Skiers states that it is 50°-55° for 500m, which puts it at a 5.4 in the toponeige rating system. As for the exposition then that again is a 4 in the toponeige ratings. We skied it from the first lift up the Aiguille. There is about 1300m of climbing from the Vallee Blanche so it is a reasonably big day out. Read the rest of this entry »