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Ski Touring in Le Tour, Le Buet & Finhaut

A week of mixed conditions in the Chamonix valley and further afield

featured in Activity reviews Author Katy Dartford, Chamonix Reporter Updated

So finally the winter has come. The last week of January it snowed big time and I’d decided to spend the week trying to get some ski touring under my belt. But as it’s been a pretty heavy winter for avalanches with a shallow snowpack and weak layers, as well as mild conditions, wind, etc, it's made picking what to do more complicated and the advice has been to only stay on terrain below 30 degrees in gradient.

Monday started with bad visibility and a continued dumping of snow. I most definitely would normally have stayed indoors had I the choice, but we made the effort to meet at Le Tour and I didn't regret it.

The front of Le Tour was miserable, cold and very windy and I didn't have much hope. But because we took our skins it meant we could ski through the trees round the back of the Tete de Balme chair lift. Out of the wind, with good visibility and almost warm, we found lots of powder. After about two laps down to the reservoir then a 15 minute skin back to the chairlift, we boot backed to the top of the Tête de Balme, and I couldn't quite believe that hardly anyone else had headed this way to access the back bowls here. There was really good, barely touched powder - but still a few stones and tree roots to trip us up.

The next day didn’t look great in the valley either, with unsettled conditions again so we headed to Le Buet where it was much brighter with an aim to tour up to Le Charmoz (2366m). From there we skinned up a gentle road that gradually leads through Vallorcine forest. I was actually very warm at this point, but once we got out of the forest, to the plateau we were into the cloud and the visibility and temperatures dropped.

Fortunately, the guardians of the Loriaz huts where preparing for guests that weekend, so they let us in for hot chocolate and to warm up by the fire. So far we had been skinning for around 3 hours. Warmed up, we made a final push to the Le Charmoz, where it all got a little bit too much for my very fat skis to handle, with the deep powder meaning snow got underneath my skins and I was slipping and sliding with every kick turn on the steeper ground. When we reached the ridge there was a break in the cloud and we got some amazing views of the Aiduille Verte and the Chamonix needles. We skinned along the ridge for for a bit, but with the weather coming in again we stopped short of the summit, and had a very fun ski back down - tripped by a few rocks - but in nice, untracked powder.

Wednesday was going to be the only really good weather day of the week with a big dump predicted for the rest of the week, so we headed to the village of Finhaut, just across the border from the Chamonix/Mont Blanc area into Switzerland to do a tour to Bel Oiseau (2628m). It's a stunning peak next to the Emosson Dam that combines 3 things that make for a good day tour; a good journey on the way up, a great little peak and a good ski down. We began with a bootpack through a steep path that rises through a forest then levels out into the Fenestral from where the whole of combe is visible, looming above. The views were amazing and we could see across to the Mont Blanc Massif, the Rhone Valley, and even out to the Bernese Oberland.

We then headed left and zig zagged up the slopes of the Col d’Oiseau. From there the summit of the peak is another 30 minutes away. Again with weather started coming in a little we stopped short of the north ridge of the peak. Here we got into ski mode and had a vast, untracked area to make our marks in - well worth the 4 hour effort up.

The rest of the week the blizzards came - we debated what to do, nearly heading to Bruson near Verbier to ski in the trees, but decided on Courmayeur where the weather was in and out. Again we scored some very deep fresh tracks and managed to wind all the way through the trees down to the valley. Friday was a Grandes Montets day, lapping the magic forest and digging myself out of some seriously deep powder.

Things have seemed to stabilise since then and tourers have been out in force. It was rather busy on the Crochues-Berard Traverse recently (see photo). I’ve also heard reports of good tours from top of Flégère to the Col de Buet, then down to Vallorcine and on the Pointe Ronde.

There have been a few serious avalanches however, all triggered by the skiers that were caught in them, but mostly involving the more recent wind loading - not the deep layer. A friend says early last week he went up the Argentiere glacier with the intention of doing Col du Passon or Col du Tour Noir. “Everything high mountain is awful and wind effected” he told me. “The wind was blowing all over the place, so we decided to bail. We ended up doing a tour of the Aiguillette des Houches instead - quite nice and no wind at all.’ It’s probably OK there now as there is lot less wind, but I’m not sure what it's like on the descent, the ascent side looked bad." However later that week he tried the Col de Beugeant on the Aiguille Rouges …”Really nice…. first ones down and the best tour I've done this season!”

Location

Map of the surrounding area