Its a funny thing, memory. Every time i go back to an important place of my childhood, i'm amazed at how small everything seems. It seems the thing of which we are least aware changing, are ourselves.
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| Ryan, "The toilet looked bigger last time i was here" |
Ive spoken at length about the mighty Vallee Blanche before. A giant valley and collection of Glaciers that run right from the Mont Blanc (Glacier du Geant) nearly to the town of Chamonix (Mer de Glace). A place so vast, that it plays tricks on your perceptions of size and distance and so riddled with death traps in the form avalanches and crevasses, that it must be treated with absolute respect and only the local guides know intimately.
An invitation to do some filming with Steve, led to a ski down to the voie normale and a ski tour back up the other side to the Italian side of the Vallee Blanche, up to the Helbronner lift station. I'd never ski toured on this Glaciated area before and i was excited about skiing the Italian Side of La Vallee Blanche," La Vallee Noir"
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| Ski touring up to where the grass is greener, Italy! |
The ski tour was nothing short of beautiful with a steady incline up in deep snow. The sun was out, the visibility was good and someone before us had layer down a great path. Progress was slow as we had a mono skier and a snow boarder in the group walking on snow shoes, which travel much more slowly and had to join themselves by rope, incase either punched through the snow, into a crevasse.
Due to a time constraint, we abandoned our plan for La Vallee Noir and took a closer route down L'Entreves. The Skiing was good, but fairly low gradient. What stuck with me most, however, was the view.
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| The View from the way up to Helbronner |
From Helbronner, we had a complete view of all the routes of the Vallee Blanche ( Petit Envers, Grand Envers, Classique, La void normalle, le Gros Rognion and le Petit Rognion) laid out like chalk lines on a satin bed sheet.
We could see the popular routes and their variations, the obvious open crevasses, and also the rows of depressions suggesting the hidden ones.
In that short tour I gained a greater understanding of that Giant and impersonal place, La Vallee Blanche. In fact, in a strange way, It then felt, just a bit smaller and a little intimate.
Below are some images from that beautiful day. Some are screen grabs from video, so quality is below the usual standard
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| Jim Enjoying the crowd 'lining up' for La Vallee Blanche arrete du midi |
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| Yep, that's my girlfriend, she's awesome |
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| Mark 'Sparky' Baldwin, no accordion, but still in tune! |
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| Steve Baldwin, Riding a mono ski into the jaws of a crevasse |
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| Steve was complaining that with his mono ski he couldn't feel the bottom, poor bloke! |
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| Its nice to leave your mark (Steve Baldwin) |
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