We woke to a similar situation as the previous day except that the snow line had dropped and it was dumping in Chamonix with an accumulation overnight at town level, but wind meant that many of the lifts were on hold either temporarily or for the day
So we decided to head back in to Italy but a little further this time to a tiny resort called Crevacol. We had been there a couple of times before, each due to foul weather, and when we skied there it was apparent that it would be a ton of fun on a powder day. It is a classic little mum & dad resort with two chairlifts and a magic carpet, but most importantly nobody in the car park. It’s quite a drive from Cham, almost 1h40m but when the alternative is not appealing the travel is worth it.
The plan was to ride both the lifts, ski down a short distance then skin approx 300m vertical to the very top, at which point we would ski over the back of the resort down to where the Grand St Bernard tunnel goes underground. From there we could either push on the roof of the covered roadway back down to the resort or ski a little lower to a taxi pickup.
When we arrived at the top we were surprised by the almost complete absence of wind given the conditions in Chamonix, and it was also lightly snowing with visibility coming in and out. We donned our skins and began climbing towards the peak, Fanny breaking trail and the crew in tow. As we headed higher we were treated to views across the valley to the famous Grand St Bernard monastery.
There was one other skinning party in the area but they headed for a lower col, and when we we reached the top after about an hour it was apparent that we would have an entire face to ourselves – 1000m vertical of completely untracked powder. Nice.
Everyone got their fill on the way down, plenty of envy-inducing videos were shot and after untracked turn after untracked turn we were in the valley. We skied down past the tunnel infrastructure and along a beautiful forest track, it was extremely peaceful and we then skied on to the snow-covered summer road up to the monastery. This was a bit of a push but we eventually made it to the road closure where Jerome had called a taxi to take us back to the resort, where we had time for one more run on the lifts, complete with freshies at the end of the day – an unheard of occurrence in a busy resort.
Unfortunately we were to say goodbye to Simon this afternoon, but we certainly sent him off with some superb experiences!
