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We had planned to do lots of ski touring in Chamonix, with the ultimate aim of skiing up – and down -Mont Blanc. The weather has had different ideas and after 3 days of sunshine, we’ve had 5 days of low cloud, rain in the valley & snow up top. Every morning, grey clouds greet us as we peel back the curtains. However, every cloud has a silver lining and we’ve been trying to make the most of the fresh powder that has been falling on the tops. The visibility has been pretty bad most days & the high lifts haven’t always been open but we’ve had some great runs down in lovely fresh snow. We also spent a day practicing crevasse rescues on a wind lip, taking it in turns to drag each other up over the lip. We have 4 days left and the weather isn’t looking great so Mont Blanc will have to wait, but I’m sure we’ll get some more good skiing in before we go home!

Firstly, I apologise to any paddlers with no interest in skiing as it’s forming a bit part of my life at the moment! I’m in Chamonix for approx 10 days of ski touring with 2 friends from Wales. We nearly broke ourselves on the first day with an epic 11 hour day… it wouldn’t have been so long if we hadn’t missed the last train back down to Chamonix and had a 2 hour walk/ ski/ walk down the railway track in our boots, carrying our skis! The ski touring before that was pretty adventurous as we skied up almost 1,000 metres us a steep gully to a col. On the other side was an even steeper gully which we abseiled down 2 rope lengths of 50 metres. In theory we could now ski down a great 45 degree slope full of lovely snow. In practice the snow was icy and hard and trying to turn down it would have been crazy. We side slipped down for what felt like ages, making only 2 turns when the snow was a bit softer. At the bottom of the never-ending gully was the bergschrund, a big crevasse which extended all the way across the glacier without a snow bridge. My nerves were frayed enough alread and I had to jump over that, with enough speed not to fall into the hole, but not so much speed that I couldn’t stop and I ended up skiing into the bergschrund further along! We had a few good turns after that, then a long almost flat ski out to the train station. Despite walking up 200metres worth of steps as quickly as we could, we missed the last train… hence our sore bodies and tired muscles the next morning. Today we had a nice day touring some cols at between 3300m and 3500m to help us acclimatise. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be less stiff!?

I don’t have much time to write much about my first proper ski touring adventure, except to say that I had a great time, and really enjoyed the mix of working hard to skin up mountains, the peace and beauty of the mountains around me, and the excitement of the ski down. There were 7 of us moving from hut to hut in Italy’s Ortler mountains.Sometimes our day involved moving from one hut to another over a col, on other occasions we stayed in 1 hut for a few days and did day tours. I enjoyed skiing up 3,692metre San Matteo and 3770m Monte Cevedale – on both occasions we climbed over 1,000 metres. I was panting very hard the first time ( partly due to the altitude and probably partly getting fit for this new type of exercise!), but by the last day I was more used to it and a bit more efficient so it didn’t seem quite such hard work. The best skiing was on other days as we climbed less high but sought out the slopes that the others thought would have the best snow. It’s great after working hard for 3 or more hours to have 1,000 metres of descent beneath you! 

The huts we stayed in were big and busy – there were more people than I’d expected, all ‘getting away from the crowds’, so sometimes it didn’t feel like you were really getting away from people at all! It’s all relative and compared to a ski resort there were far fewer people but as you set off in the mornings there could be a few dozen people heading in a similar direction – small chains of ants in a vast environment. The huts were pretty busy which was sociable at times, we got fed and didn’t  need to take sleeping bags so it made the tour very comfortable. It’s not known as the ‘cappuchino tour’ for nothing! I preferred hot chocolate and it wasn’t unusual to stop at a hut for a drink during the day and then have another drink before dinner at whichever hut we were staying in. 

I was only delayed 24 hours in getting home so I’ve been home about 5 days, catching up with work and a few friends and going seakayaking last weekend. in a couple of hours I’m off ski touring again, to France this time. It’s like busses, I’ve wanted to do this for ages and not done but now I’m going twice in a month. I’m enjoying the break from work after intense months working on “This is Canoeing” – when I get back I’ll have to decide what my next DVD will be! Not ‘this is ski touring’ just yet, but maybe at some time in the future!? 

Thanks very much to Lyon Equipment in the UK for providing me with some fantastic Julbo glasses & goggles which kept me seeing where I was going! They also import Petzl, ortlieb & Exped equipment and will be sponsoring me with some of that gear for future seakayaking trips which i’m looking forward to!

Thanks also to Mike Austin for making sure I didn’t fall into a crevasse or ski out into a high risk avalanche zone!

I enjoy traditional skiing where I have made the most of lifts to get me to the top of the mountain, but I have wanted to get into ski touring for several years and never quite found the time. While I love the thrill of skiing down slopes, I see parallels between ski touring and seakayaking trips which I love. Both use human power to get to places which are hard to reach otherwise, and which you can enjoy away from the crowds. Both allow you to travel through beautiful landscapes, to stay overnight is some wonderful places, & keep ( or get) you fit & honest. Both require good judgement to keep you safe and if you chose your routes, you can have as much excitement as you want thrown in.

This year, once I finished editing “This is Canoeing” I spoke to various friends about going skiing, vowing to finally make every effort to get out ski touring. I have very little experience of ski touring and know even less about traveling safely across snow.  Last weekend I was lucky to join 2 lovely people who I met on a wilderness first responsder course for a couple of days skiing in the Cairngorms in Scotland.

 When I first met Lesley Beck on this course she described herself as having done ‘some ski racing’. It was several days later before more questions revealed that she represented  Britain in the Olympics twice, came 10th in a slalom world cup & was 2nd in the world for telemark skiing! She now runs Rare Event Management, which organises events like the Mountain Bike World Cup in Fort William.

Lesley’s partner Mike Austin is 3-years into his

training to become a ski guide under the American system and I was very happy to hear that he’s completed a 3-stage course on avalanche forecasting! More importantly, they are really nice people and we had a great weekend of skiing.

On Friday morning, I was clutching new ski touring boots but the weather was too nice to break me in gently! We had a 7 hour day skinning up Braeraich & back. We skinned up to the high pass in the Lairig Ghru valley, skied down to the valley bottom and then up Braeraich. My heels didn’t like their new boots but 4 compeed later, they were fine and my feet are still in tact! The cloud was fairly low on Saturday so we had a lie-in, caught up with some of Lesley & Mikes friends, went for a walk and ate nice cakes! It was raining on Sunday morning, which turned to snow as we drove up to the Cairngorm ski centre 

car park. The forecast was due to clear up so we spent a few hours in the cafe, drinking tea, eating sausage butties and glancing out of the window every 10 minutes or so. Finally around midday we could see further than a few cars away and we got ready to ski. The clouds lifted as we skinned up Cairngorm and by the time we reached the top of the lift system it was blue sky! We traversed around the back of Cairngorm, glanced down at a virginal mountain without a single ski line on it, and picked our first route down. 3 runs each later, we skiied back round the to piste and skied back down to the car. 

Once back at Mike’s cottage, Lesley took all 3 sets of skis ( I’m borrowing some from Mike) and gave them a service. I found it fascinating how she sharpened the edges, and then melted wax onto the bottom of the skis with an iron to re-wax them. 

All in all, a fantastic weekend and I’m looking forward to travelling to the Ortler Alps in Italy with Lesey and Mike in less than a weeks time. We have 6 days ski touring in this amazing region of the Alps to look forward to. It’s otherwise known as the “cappuchino tour” as we’ll be staying in huts every night, aswell as visiting other huts for the occassional hot drink. I never did that on a seakayaking trip, but I think I couldget used to it!

This link is to a similar itinerary to what we hope to  do, but not exactly the same. Mike will be offering guided trips in this area in the future.