TR: Chamonix Day 4 – Ski Tour Crochues/Berard

With clouds looming over the Aiguille du Midi, we decided to leave that for another day and head for the Aiguilles Rouges for a ski tour. Starting from Flegere, we would ride to the top, put on our skins, hike to the Col des Aiguilles Crochues, ski a way down the valley, skin again to the Col du Berard, and then ski down the Berard Valley to the township of Le Buet.

Despite the fact we had skied a couple of days on the Brevent/Flegere side of the Chamonix Valley, it had always been in poor visibility so we had never been able to take advantage of the perfect vantage point for viewing the Mont Blanc massif. Here’s a great shot of L’Aiguille Verte & Les Drus early in the morning:

Time to fix the skins:

And finally it was time to learn the infamous uphill kick turn. Skin tracks up the mountain are often set in zig zag patterns, requiring the ability to turn 180 degrees on the spot. I had been warned about the learning curve on these, and I would definitely be lying if I said it was easy. Standing on the side of the mountain with each ski pointing in the opposite direction wondering how on earth you can get the other one around is quite a precarious feeling, and is often followed by a far less than graceful movement. It wasn’t until the second skin of this tour that we even remotely looked like we knew what we were doing!

As the slope got steeper and narrower towards the col, the switchbacks became closer and we got to the point that the kick turns were wasting too much time so we strapped our skis to our backs and bootpacked up to the col. I’d like to say this was fun, but it really wasn’t, but it was over fairly soon and it was time to ski some powder. The best part about our arrival at the Col was the view, a breathtaking vista of the Mont Blanc Massif:

Richard & Jerome on the bootpack just below the Col:

Powder awaiting us on the other side:

After some nice powder turns and a long traverse, it was time to fix the skins again for an ascent up to the Col du Berard.

What should have been a straightforward skin up to the Col du Berard actually became quite a challenge due to strong crosswinds threatening to blow us down off the skin track, and also the blowing snow that this was transporting, even though i was less than 20-30m from the next skier at times the track had completely filled in with windblown snow which made things awkward at times. Anyway all difficulties were forgotten once we saw what was awaiting us on the other side:

Our tracks with the Col in the background:

All smiles:

Jerome led us to an area that was a couple of square kilometres of lovely soft powder:

A full shot of the Combe du Berard:

From this point onwards we followed the river down to the town of Le Buet – at times it was a bit like a ‘James Bond’ trail complete with berms, whoop-de-doos and the odd creek crossing:

We got a great view of the Couloir we skied yesterday afternoon above Vallorcine:

Our tour ended at the township of Le Buet:

Where we rewarded ourselves with a lovely platter and glass of wine:

We then caught the train back to Chamonix extremely content, and reflecting on the various aspects and emotions of the day. Some of the climbing wasn’t particularly fun, but it was incredibly rewarding when we reached the powder and knew that our efforts were what enabled us to achieve this goal.