2 Contrasting Days in Chamonix
Day 1 with Dave, Ben and James on the Vallée Blanche - this was their 5th attempt, having been foiled by weather and conditions in previous years. This time we finally got there, though not without queuing for Britain. A queue for tickets at 8.30, to get on a cable car at just before midday, then a pleasant ski down via the Gros Rognon with some great powder for a few hundred meters.
Just before arriving at Montenvers, I had noticed a helicopter hovering at the cable car, and my incident antennae started to twitch. Walking up the steps from the ice grotto, I could see a PGHM mountain rescue policeman administering CPR. A heart attack had happened just half an hour before. Unfortunately the victim did not recover...... We later learned that in another incident, a skier had died in a crevasse fall near the Gros Rognon. The glacier really is in a very delicate state just now..
The queues and the fatality definitely put a damper on what should have been a great day.
By contrast the next day was at the other end of the scale - no queues in Vallorcine in the morning, a lovely quiet skin halfway up to the Col des Autannes, some great skiing on grippy carpet back to charamillon, and spring snow down the Combe de la Vormaine, and an afternoon ski down to Trient in Switzerland with no one else around. I was sat on a chair lift listening to two British skiers commenting how small Le Tour is, and that tomorrow they would be off to the Grands Montets. As far as I'm concerned, the more folk are of that opinion, the better. It leaves the great little resorts quieter for the rest of us!
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