When I am off-piste on my tele skis I don’t have the same confidence I have on the board so I decided to begin my proper ski touring itineraries with an easy one, somewhere I knew I would have been able to ski down confidently, enjoy the views without worrying too much about the terrain. Not all the ski touring itineraries are steep and difficult. Very often you find that a very good portion of the itinerary is actually not steep at all.
The easiest way of finding out more about the mountain/ski itinerary you intend to follow is simply looking at the map, especially at the contour lines. They tell you how steep or flat mountain faces and slopes are. So when my friend Adelaide told me she was going to do this short ski touring itinerary and invited me to go along I thought it was a good opportunity to finally start using my tele skis off-piste.
We started at 2,480 mt at the arrival of the Telepherique – Les Grandes Platiers – we skied down to a refuge (Chalets de Plate’) at 2,030 mt and then using the skins we hiked back up. It took us about 2 hours. It was a lot shorter and definitely not as interesting as other itineraries I did earlier on this winter but although there is still a lot of snow up there, given the time of the year, the snow below 2,000 mt can be very heavy and sticky so not great fun to ski and hike on.. but the views were really pretty so it was definitely worth it. You can easily guess why the name of this plateau is “desert”
I think I might go walking/hiking this w/e but I’ll be back on skis and skins next week
Adelaide on her way down
..and the view is so nice.. in the distance you can see the north west face of the mont blanc and on its left the aguille du midi. I found these mountainsare so powerful and inspiring. they humble you and make you feel so small
Nice cornices
Adelaide is gone, she wasted no time..she is a great skier, I better catch her up..
..although I quite like to be alone in this beautiful white desert
Adelaide having a little break to enjoy the view
Col de la Portette 2,354 mt. there is a ski touring itinerary behind it. it’ a long way to come back up but it’s beautiful. I might do it at some stage soon before it gets too hot
I suppose I can call this a snow dune
As expected, like myself adelaide is trying to make the most of the view on her way down
Not long to go. you can see the chalets on the bottom right
Salut! Je suis Adelaide and j’adore le ski de randonnee
Mission accomplished, Chalets du Plate’ - 2,030 mt.
