Last week saw the 14th year of Steep Vanoise courses, and it was a pleasure to once again be joined by IFMGA guide Dorian Labaeye, though the prevailing conditions (it had finally started to snow, lots, after 6 weeks of drought) saw us rename the week ‘as steep as we can Vanoise’, as the avalanche risk was going to be high all week (sadly several fatal accidents occurred in the northern french alps during the week, along with some very lucky escapes).
Huge thanks to Amanda, Jack, Gavin, Nick, Rod, Chris, Simon & Dave for being flexible with the objectives! We managed to ramp up the angles where & when it was reasonable (which was not very often) but still managed 5 days of great skiing, including one absolute bonus afternoon when we went back out after a soggy morning and were treated to a break in the clouds and absolutely no one else on the mountain!!
See the picture below for the answer as to why we were playing it conservatively! – A guide and their client had skied across this slope in the morning to save 15 minutes extra skinning, by the afternoon the whle face had avalanched big style !!
Same time same place next year? You bet!
