Chamonix Off Piste & Ski Mountain Skills
1st Feb 2014
This week has been the first "Chamonix Off Piste and Ski Mountain Skills" course of the season, with 2 more to follow later on in the winter. As an instructor it is a great pleasure to watch clients and be thinking "we would have struggled to ski this as efficiently at the beginning of the week", and that is what I was thinking as we were weaving between the crevasses on the Vallée Blanche yesterday.
The group spent Monday and Wednesday with me skiing at Les Houches and Les Grands Montets, fine tuning their off-piste skills. They then had the opportunity to put these skills into practice whilst journeying in the mountains with IFMGA Mountain Guide Rob Jarvis. They skied at Combloux and toured up the Petite Croise Baulet on Tuesday. On Thursday they ventured through to Italy and beyond the Bonatti Hut (not forgetting to call in to sample the fine coffee).
We all headed out together for the final day, Rob giving guidance on glacier travel and I gave reminders on the technical points that we had covered during the week. It was a great finale to the week to be able to ski the Vallée Blanche all the way back to Chamonix. Click here for a selection of photos from the course.
With a rare day off today it was great to make the most of the fine weather, before the clouds came over, by skiing the ENSA couloir with James and Jim Savage.
