damian 0 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 My girlfriend and I have been away searching and exploring the Swiss mountain passes that opened on the first weekend in June. Lots of fun and adventure. There was even a brief return to winter with snow down to 1500m and on our tent. At 2500m there was 20-30cm of fresh snow that was unfortunately blown about badly by the +30 knot winds. Overall, Switzerland was busy proving why it is clearly the most beautiful country in Earth. As Spring heads towards summer the landscape turns ultra green and alive with blue skies and mountains. One of the amazing aspects is how the weather and spring flora changes from one valley to the next. Anyway, what do you do when you are driving round the bend of a pass and across the valley you see this? Hello mate, nice to see you. I know Toque, FT, EBC etc have already worked out what feature I am talking about, but here is a closer picture of the subject. Vital statistics Name: dunno. I called it My Couloir, because I 'found' it and most importantly I climbed it and then rode it. Angle: 40-45 at the best. 30 at the very top and bottom. Just a nice steady chute. Vertical descent: 450m (if you include a lead in area and run out, otherwise 400m) Aspect: NE Place: Switzerland. Not in nor near a resort, just off the side of a road which only opens in June. Time of year: June I wont go into a day by day description of our excellent trip, but by the 4th day of the adventure I finally had a chance to ride my couloir. The weather was crap: sleet and icy snow crystals. We parked the car at the bottom and my girlfriend walked up the other side of the valley to film whilst I climbed the couloir. The top third of the line was in thick clouds and the top half had been severely wind blasted. The entire line was a steady transformation from ice to slush. At the top was hard frozen spring corn (crampon points penetrated but the foot stayed on the surface. If you liked pain then you could push a finger into it up to the first knuckle. It was quite hard!). At the bottom: knee deep slush. The top half was excellent to ride: very wind scoured, smooth and fast. The ice was yielding enough to get a good edge. Half way down there was a big patch of pin-wheels and av debris from the recent fresh snow coming away from the rocky couloir walls and rolling into the middle before the fresh soft stuff had a chance to blow away. Most lumps and rolled up snowballs were knee high and had frozen. This screwed the line up but also was well placed to take a break on the descent and rest the legs. The snow quality from there rapidly softened and so it was a good 'speed hump' to force a change in riding style. I tried to keep a bit of flow and momentum through this patch but managed the crash and throw a cartwheel or two before regaining my edge. I wasn't really going fast enough to tomahawk. but I was lucky not to have suffered this minor flip higher up on the harder surface. The bottom third was heavy and not so great to ride. The kind of snow that needs a solid freeze overnight and a sunrise descent, before it turns to mush. The night had been cold and it was sleeting at the bottom when I rode it, but it had not been cold enough to freeze the bottom length. It is hard to get good overnight freezes in June. The top of the couloir felt like winter with strong gusts and stinging ice and small frozen snow flakes. After I climbed up I took a quick lunch and switched from crampons to ride mode. It got pretty cold, but was nice to be up there in the heavy weather all alone. I was amazed that my girlfriend wanted to film. She was in windy wet weather for almost 2 hours watching me slowly climb then quickly ride. Her filming point was ok but it couldn't see the bottom bit and the run out. Plus without a tripod and with cold shivering hands it is a bit shaky. In addition to all of these filming challenges, the top third of the line was entirely in the clouds so from when I drop in (we have a set of walkie-talkies) until when I appear below the clouds a whole 60 seconds of riding had already elapsed. And of course the light conditions where about as flat as you can get and the contrast in the film is black rock or white snow. No colour or clarity. The entire descent took 3 minutes and 25 seconds. I am amazed that she wanted to endure all the waiting and sleet just for 3 minutes! I am on a dial up connection so wont be posting and movie just now. She is a great girl for filming. A still shot taken from the descent footage Half way up looking down Looking up towards the white out Looking down just before vanishing into the clouds. It is unusual to have a view of the valley below like this so it felt quite high. You can see the road at the bottom as well as the large-ish river that this summer waterfall flows into. After riding it I took this picture showing the view from the very far side of the valley with the the top third of the couloir in the clouds. Bummer. It would have been great to have filmed the riding top-to-bottom. After the descent I offered to take my girlfriend up there but she was frozen from standing still for so long and we opted for a Swiss sausage and beer instead. All done by lunch time! I could do a TR on other days of this trip away. We had a great time camping and exploring maps and valleys for good snow. One great area we spotted from across a large valley yielded a magnificent 8 hour top to bottom day trip. Me, my girlfriend and dog hiked from the trailhead in the valley of cows (including bells!), spring farmland and wooded areas, left the tree line, crossed rocky streams, reached the snow line, hiked further, reached the distant objective at the glacier, boil a cup of tea and eat a small lunch then ride down with the dog struggling to keep up. He fell so far behind and was running like he would burst so I decided to carry him for a while whilst I rode my board. My objective this season was to teach my girlfriend to snowboard and introduce her to the back country. We now investigate and plan routes from our map library, get our gear sorted and set out hiking and riding together. It has been a fantastic season and I have the best BC partner (and GF) I could ever dream of. This is her working hard after several hours. After ascending from the distant dry valley below we had just cleared the corniced moraine in the near back ground. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 Thanks. I'd like to be 20 years younger with a gf like yours. Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 very nice spud that line was sick. Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 I'm impressed The couloir looks much bigger than the 400 metres you said. Too bad you couldn't get a proper melt/freeze cycle going for it to be really good riding Much better than the surf pictures of before I could do without all the lovy dovy crap though Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 dude he has found the one lol Link to post Share on other sites
big-will 7 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 That snow on the first pic looks almost fluffy. Good stuff. Link to post Share on other sites
eskimobasecamp 0 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 10 outa 10... looks like you guys are just having a wicked time out there... sweeeet! and that snow is WHITE baby... aaaaaaahh the switzeeeerland eh, beautiful. haha go go with the lovy dovy crap... we love it (and toque secretly does too ) ahhh if only i could find a backcountry boy lol Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted June 6, 2006 Share Posted June 6, 2006 >It has been a fantastic season and I have the best BC partner (and GF) I could ever dream of. Awesome Spuds I wanna find a girl like that myself. Your trip report was really nice to read. Do you have anymore trips coming up? Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Author Share Posted June 7, 2006 hahah, that's not Lovy Dovy, that's stoke at getting the BC team up and running. Thanks for the comments. When I saw the line I was pulling over in the first space on the side of the road and carried on like an excited kid. After a pretty long and considered assessment of the situation (risks) we went to have a crack at a smaller one to the right of the bigger one but a council worker told us pretty firmly that the road we were on had not opened yet and said police a few times. It seems when the Swiss say 'closed' they really mean it for a reason. We had to by-pass two obvious gates to get there so he had a point. That is why we waited a few days to get it. I was so happy when they opened the road to the public, but bummed at the weather. I agree that it looks longer more than 400 vert, but I checked the map and it is certainly not more than 500m. Also, from when I put on my crampons at the bottom to then I arrived at the top it took only 70 minutes. That is pretty not much time so it can't be much higher than 400. By comparison, les Courtes couloir that I did last month is up to 50* and +800m vert , taking 4-5 hours to climb. The sides of this couloir were quite banked up and added an extra element of steepness (the vertical angle of the line + the angled sides into the middle line). They were fun to surf. A top-to-bottom medium-frozen run would have been perfect but.... not that day. I reckon in those conditions you could ride top to bottom in perhaps 2.5 minutes, which is just short enough at that amount of turning compressive pressure to maintain ok leg muscle strength the whole way down. And in powder it would be a blast but jeez, I would be pulling over every 4th turn into a 'safe' zone, being really careful. On a good powder day with a stable pack I reckon you could rip down it in no more than 10 turns. In mid winter it would take about 2 hours to walk up the closed road to the couloir base where you could camp a few day and ride the other chutes in the area. Something to remember for next season. Creeky - I don't know if I will get to ride again this season. I have a good 10 days of 'holiday' left over, perhaps 15 days, and really want to go riding. But it is getting tough. I could head back into Switzerland and roam the passes alone, but car rental is costing me a ton. However there is loads of snow up there if you are prepared to walk and set up a base camp deep up a snowy valley above the snow line, especially on the glaciers. But crevasse bridges at this time of the year get super sketchy even for a team of three.... and they are a potential death trap for a solo trekker such as I would be. As for Chamonix, my main guide has hung up his board and now just doing summer mountaineering. I had a plan to hike up Mont Blanc from the valley on the Italian side and then ride down the northern French side from the summit. That would have been a huge 2 day effort but I cant find a guide (that I know personally) that wants to do it. The ascent would be 3000m of vertical. Hard work. I have also detected that I am asking guides to do things that they are not really supposed to do. Well, they are freely permitted to do them but there seems to be an un-written code that guides should not take cash from clients to do clearly dangerous stuff. During the hike of one guided couloir I did this season we met some people along the way. After chatting my guide wanted to know if I told them he was a guide as he didn't want word to get out that he was taking clients to those types of descents. He is happy to do it, loves doing it with me. But also is aware of the politics. Rather than a guide I think it is getting to the stage where I need a local riding buddy that is more experienced than me yet also wants to make advancements in the field of 'extreme' snowboarding (yeah, its a stupid term but the shortest way to get my point across). Besides, guides want to earn a living, not risk their income by sustaining an injury on a risky trip just so a client can get their rocks off. I kind of understand that attitude. So not sure what to do for the rest of the season. I may just take a train and go hiking and camping in the mountains without my board. That would be good experience, but would be ultra frustrating if I saw something to climb and ride (and there is still soooo much out there, seriously, the mountains are loaded). Link to post Share on other sites
slow 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by le spud: So not sure what to do for the rest of the season. Get a road bike! Giro d'Italia! Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Author Share Posted June 7, 2006 Slow, are you trying to be helpful or insult me? Either way, my remaining days in Italy are unfortunately down to two weeks. Quote: Originally posted by eskimobasecamp: ... that snow is WHITE baby... It's white because it fell within 24 hours of the picture being taken. It was like winter! Check this out. No action picture, but part of the scene that we found on the previous days hike after a cold night. That's a hollowed out log used as a watering trough for livestock. I drank from it. That day we had snow falling from trees down our backs, it was great! But I'm the one with envy. You are going to NZ for 4 weeks pretty soon, ne? (I'd love to go there but kiwis genuinely hate me, so I dont think I could handle the bad vibes) I guess this pic will repulse beanie as it is scenic, not knee deep and all together lame. But it was fresh snow at 1500 in June. Link to post Share on other sites
eskimobasecamp 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 All very cool..... love it new snow falling in june no less! So cool to see some WHITE snow ya know........... is not looking so white up yonder hakuba way these days - well from a distance it does. Yeh yeh off to nz for 4 weeks, well up for it! The humidity in Japan at that time of year surprisingly doesn't really do it for me, so a month of snow in there will be perfect........... my bro is down there already for the whole season, but he says there's nothing to ride yet. Was droooooling over some big planks today... should i buy them before nz hahahaha?! Emmmm why prey tell do the kiwis hate you? ALL of them?! By the way - do you have a job? Or are you just an international jetset mountain adventurer. If it's the latter, do let me know how one might get into that lol. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Author Share Posted June 7, 2006 It would seem like I am a free and easy mtn guy, but it is a scam. I was offered a new job 2 months ago and took it. The offer contract came with a 1st July start date. On resignation, my old employer was so pissed off that they told me to eff off that day... so I did and they cancelled my contract. The new employer (whom I am friends with and know from the past) asked if I would consider starting earlier than 1 July. I burnt all goodwill capital by saying that I wanted 2 months off between jobs. Since then the new employer's HR dept has stuffed up my work permit application and so I am still sitting around wondering if it will be a full 3 months of free time before I start in 1 July. Sounds better than it is as I had only 1 day of planning for my once in a lifetime 2 months off work and now don't know if I have the rest of the month off or just the next week, which makes it hard to travel and live every day to the fullest. And I'm not getting paid all this time. But I rode waves and mtns and grew a proper beard so I am happy. And the other question; Kiwis generally dislike me because: 1. I am a competative Australian so they get all edgy over that. 2. I don't belong to the Aussie stereotype and that throws a spanner into their works of anti-aussie. In their confusion they generate fear and as Yoda says, fear leads to hate. Don't worry, Australian males dislike me as much as Kiwis do. I hide in Europe. ps - not all kiwis dislike me. I met Davo at a bus stop in Nagano on my second day of snowboarding. He was nice. Likewise Snowglider, whom I met later that season at a piss-up. Link to post Share on other sites
Yuki's Passion 1 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by slow: Quote: Originally posted by le spud: So not sure what to do for the rest of the season. Get a road bike! Giro d'Italia! Im with Slow on this one. Get a road bike or mtn bike and use some man power Spuds! Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by le spud: I guess this pic will repulse beanie as it is scenic, not knee deep and all together lame. But it was fresh snow at 1500 in June. ****in scenic pictures. They don't belong here at all I'd have to scrap 90% of my pictures if I thought that way You're living it dude. Get after it over the next week. You might not get this chance again for a while. Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by eskimobasecamp: Was droooooling over some big planks today... should i buy them before nz hahahaha?! Sorry for the sidetrack here You've been living in Hakuba for 2 years now and you're just now drooling over big skis What's the deal on that? Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 finding the right partner to push yourself is quite hard spud. I put it down to trust i need to trust my partner not to put us into danger. he or she has to trust me the same. Of course in europe you have those giant holes crevases that change the landscape. Those things scare me silly. one wrong map read and you can get into trouble. Is the new job gonna be ok? Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 i moved the fat ski talk over to the snow in japan thread toque. today we must hammer a few points home to ebc Link to post Share on other sites
eskimobasecamp 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 Quote: Originally posted by Toque: Quote: Originally posted by eskimobasecamp: Was droooooling over some big planks today... should i buy them before nz hahahaha?! Sorry for the sidetrack here You've been living in Hakuba for 2 years now and you're just now drooling over big skis What's the deal on that? ohhh beanie boy, polite as ever i see.... strangely the drooling didn't suddenly start yesterday, much to your displease i'm sure. incase ya didn't know i have k2 public enemys - and totally good enough for the pow i was riding last season and the bit of bc that i did do - wicked skis (what you boyz would sneer at and utter mid-fat mid-fat)...... was just in rapie with nick yesterday.... looking... wondering.... hmmm fatter skis (obviously)... next year... hmmmm pow... hmmmm - ya know?! had to ski on the enemys first this year before i contemplate the ones i looked at yesterday which are 110 in the waist. how fat are YOUR skis anyway? Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 lets keep this in snow japan today and leave the pretty couloir alone Link to post Share on other sites
mattlucas 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 My fault Moved it over It is a very pretty couloir Spud Link to post Share on other sites
rach 1 Posted June 7, 2006 Share Posted June 7, 2006 And very pretty it is indeed. Looks great. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted June 7, 2006 Author Share Posted June 7, 2006 Hi Rach, I'm glad you think it is pretty. Thanks to the dudes for protecting the thread. I myself started to go off topic as well. (I can't see myself getting it serious biking. I like them as a means of near distance transport, like in Tokyo. But not as a serious passion). I am waiting on a reply to an email and that will determine what else I ride this season.... Link to post Share on other sites
sanjo 2 Posted June 8, 2006 Share Posted June 8, 2006 Nice report. Interesting to see how much snow there seems left up there. Link to post Share on other sites
damian 0 Posted June 9, 2006 Author Share Posted June 9, 2006 Thanks Sanjo. Here is a small clip (3mb, 60 seconds). It took half a day to upload on my dialup connection so someone had better bloody well watch it. Don't hope for any shredding, just me turning my way down the line on tired legs, controlling my speed (I did an 8 hour hike the previous day and just finished a steep 400m Stairmaster style of climb). The footage is only of a short section of the descent, but you get to enjoy a bit of conversation at the start and my dog grumbling at something near the end. Just at the end of the footage I slow down as this is where I start to navigate the lumps of single point av debris and pinwheels. You can see a dark patch on the snow further below me where it got quite bad and I crashed. The video quality is not good as I had to cut back on it to reduce the file size. The quality is better if you view it on a smaller viewer screen than that large Google Video default. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3290340897856944443 Link to post Share on other sites
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