Team On The Hill
- May 5, 2020
- 2 min read
Week 1 of March 2020, around mid-season whilst in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, produced some of the seasons highest snowfall (75cm in the mid-mountain). Together with around 35cm in the mid-mountain during the last week of February, the days leading up to 4th March 2020 proved to be great conditions for a ski tour!
A mix mash of 'young' and keen skiers and snowboards set their sights on a well known and demanding tour of the Breche Puiseux.
Aka 'Team on the Hill' - coined by an employee of a well known transfer company in the valley during its early days - consisted of an international bunch;
- Patric Lundell - representing Sweden and himself 🇸🇪
- Marck Patterson - representing the UK and the North 🇬🇧
- Declan Doherty - representing Ireland and Guiness 🇮🇪
- Jasmine Martineau - representing Canada and Snowboarders 🇨🇦
- Albin Thunander - representing Sweden and Men with Beards🇸🇪
- Michal Chowaniec - representing Poland and Splitboarding 🇵🇱
- Jonnie Miller - representing the UK and Presenting 🇬🇧 ...
... The Mighty 7 - set off from Chamonix up the Aiguille du Midi (3842m) cable car at 0755 to make the most of the blue skies forecast early in the morning. (Note; the 'weather' always changes in the mountains and is not concerned with your plans).
We arrived at the top of the lift and took upon the knife-edge ridge (sounds knarly but it is not really as now there are ropes all the way to a safe point) of the Aiguille du Midi down onto some level ground on the shoulder of the peak to start our descent of the Col du Midi and onwards towards the Vallee Blanche.
The snow report was right, we had over a metre of snow on the ground and the sweet sweet powder felt good, making progress a little slow it was so deep. The team adopted a method unheard of by many to get through the deepness, similar to breaking trail we fell into single file and pushed each other in a train like fashion to combat the flat sections. It was actually very fun.
After making our way across a few crevasses and steeper sections of powder we came to the start of the climb! By now we were running a little behind the required schedule to make the Breche Puiseux, we pushed on and started skinning up the side of the mountain. A strong team and we moved well together, taking in the views of the magnificent glaciers and mountain peaks around us.
Having had our fill of going up and with some inclement weather inbound the team make a group decision to head down before the climb up to the col and call it.
A great day had by all and some sweet lines enjoyed on the downhill!
Although we didn't make our goal we had ambition and was an excellent experience, demonstrating teamwork, decision making, cheerfulness, adaptivity and sound mountaineering skills. A pleasure - look forward to planning some more next season!!
Snow. Skies. PoW. Fun.
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