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Thursday, 08 Mar 07
There are no weenie lines here in the Oisans region of the Alps, only big lines.
Pro skier Jessica Baker, photographer Heather Erson (whose pictures are currently stuck on her hard drive), and filmmaker Ryan VanLanen, and I are in the French Alps in search of the biggest line. Many people wrote the Alps off this year as a pointless vacation because it didn’t snow much until recently. Sure the snowpack – chalky up high and mushy down low – is totally variable due to a warmer season than usual, but we are talking a 6,300-foot vertical drop from top to bottom of La Grave-La Meije to start. Then there are also thousands of vertical feet to ski at nearby Vaujany and Alpe d’Huez resorts.
For the week, however, we are staying in La Grave and driving to the other mountains depending on weather conditions. La Grave-La Meije is no ordinary ski area. “You’re in an unsecured site in the high mountains where weather conditions can change rapidly and you’re in charge of your own safety,” the mountain brochure says. The “Telepherique” takes skiers nearly to the top of La Meije – one of the classic alpine climbs in the Alps – where skiers can find steep pee-your-pants couloirs and glaciated runs. “This requires a certain technical level, but above all a good dose of humility and responsibility when faced with the natural elements,” the brochure continues.
Vanessa Pierce atop a couloir heaven in Vaujany, France.
La Meije, named after Gaspard de la Meije, the first to climb the 11,946-foot peak in 1877, is as serious as the town La Grave (“grave”) suggests. Ski patrol does not roam the peak and every year people die. Doug Coombs, one of the pioneers of extreme skiing, fell to his death last year on Couloir de Polichinelle in a freak accident. Here is a place where a skier can be cruising through the trees and suddenly ski off a 500-foot cliff. There are no signs, and most of the skiing is above treeline among rocks and crevasses. Most tourists, if they are smart, hire guides.
In the last two days, the weather has done a 180-degree turn from bluebird perfection to whiteout conditions. We waited three days to ski La Grave because the mountain had closed due to slab avalanche danger. No one bombs this place. It is truly as natural a ski area as can be imagined where ropes and harnesses are certainly necessary.
So when the sun appeared after a warm rain (down low)/snow (up high) cycle, La Grave was still closed. We headed to Vaujany, a ski area about an hour away in the I’Oisans region where church steeples and small villages line the valley floor, and massive peaks monopolize the skyline. Our guide, Xavier Cret, “is the mountains” as Baker put it. He is a 39-year-old La Grave guide who has been taking people skiing in this rugged terrain for 13 years. In that time, 7 close friends of his have died, the last being Coombs. He speaks simple English, using the word “wild” to describe La Grave. He, however, knows the mountains like the back of his roughed-up hands, and our life is in them.
In Vaujany, we took three trams up to the top of the 10,000-foot mountain. Only guided skiers could go up the third tram, the Pic Blanc. We were lucky because at the top, we look across the Clavans glacier to see only two tracks and La Grave and Italy in the background. Skiing the steep pitch of the 1,000-vertical-foot Grand Sablat couloir was heavenly and “bouncy” as Baker described it. We continued down 5,000 feet into the village of Clavant, where we were picked up in a taxi and driven to a nearby restaurant. As we stepped out of the taxi, we noticed that a picnic table had already been set. We dined on duck, steak, pasta, and salad before going up for two more spectacular runs down couloirs and through cliff bands.
Though Vaujany seemed like only a warm up to La Grave. The next day, we awoke to graybird skies and socked-in clouds. The mountain was open finally so we head to the top. Cret could not ski with us that day because he had “very important” business to take care of as mayor of his nearby town Villa D’Arene. Baker, our guide for the day, knows the mountain well. For four years, she apprenticed under Coombs and is now the owner of Ski Divas camps in La Grave and other international ski areas. At the top, the conditions were completely white and windy. “It’s probably best you can’t see where we are,” Baker said. To get to some of the classic couloirs, traversing over 200-foot cliffs was not out of the ordinary.
Again we did not go too extreme on La Grave yesterday due to weather. We skied the “basics,” Baker said. They weren’t necessarily exposed but still extremely long and steep. The Banane and Patou were soft open couloirs surrounded by fortress-like walls. Farther below, we continued to ski in a mysterious land where larch forests ruled and it seemed like trolls would pop out at any time. It was eerily hazing and foggy like in the fairy tale stories of enchanted forests. The skiing was fast and fun as we dropped over boulders aplenty. According to our Swedish friend and skiing partner for the day, Nikola Leijon, the larch tree produces a poisonous bud so other plants do not grow around it.
Today we meet Cret again in bluebird conditions. Will we go big? Likely. Stay tuned …
Living the dream in the French Alps
Comment on this Post First published on Biglines.com on March 7, 2007. Written by Vanessa PierceVanessa Pierce atop a couloir heaven in Vaujany, France.
La Meije, named after Gaspard de la Meije, the first to climb the 11,946-foot peak in 1877, is as serious as the town La Grave (“grave”) suggests. Ski patrol does not roam the peak and every year people die. Doug Coombs, one of the pioneers of extreme skiing, fell to his death last year on Couloir de Polichinelle in a freak accident. Here is a place where a skier can be cruising through the trees and suddenly ski off a 500-foot cliff. There are no signs, and most of the skiing is above treeline among rocks and crevasses. Most tourists, if they are smart, hire guides.
In the last two days, the weather has done a 180-degree turn from bluebird perfection to whiteout conditions. We waited three days to ski La Grave because the mountain had closed due to slab avalanche danger. No one bombs this place. It is truly as natural a ski area as can be imagined where ropes and harnesses are certainly necessary.
So when the sun appeared after a warm rain (down low)/snow (up high) cycle, La Grave was still closed. We headed to Vaujany, a ski area about an hour away in the I’Oisans region where church steeples and small villages line the valley floor, and massive peaks monopolize the skyline. Our guide, Xavier Cret, “is the mountains” as Baker put it. He is a 39-year-old La Grave guide who has been taking people skiing in this rugged terrain for 13 years. In that time, 7 close friends of his have died, the last being Coombs. He speaks simple English, using the word “wild” to describe La Grave. He, however, knows the mountains like the back of his roughed-up hands, and our life is in them.
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