The La Grave trip.....and more

[Ripzalot]

My buddies Dave and Vic from back home in FL arrived on Friday afternoon and timed it perfectly with the snow. After a 3 week dry spell with conditions getting sketchy at all but the highest ski stations, it was looking grim for their trip. I had even began managing their expectations a week or so before with contingency plans if the snow sucked. Then, 6 days before they arrived, the forecasts started going off. It got better and better until the day they arrived. Unofrtunately, not much pushing down to the Haute Alpes, so I decided it was better to put the summit on the back burner and play it day by day.

Saturday - we spent the first day at Leysin, getting nice knee deep freshies all day long. This was the first time that I've ever had to put the chains on to make it to any swiss resort, so it was impressive to say the least. It continued to snow on and off that day, with occasional breaking cloud spells. Not a lot of folks on the hill, so really really nice. Les Fers powder fields was FUN as was the offpiste route that TeleAl took us down. Suh-weet powder! Great day. A perfect first day for two (or three) florida JONGS! :D oh yeah - as we ended the day on the last run, Al pauses and hears someone yelling in the distance. Happens to be a friend of his stuck cliffed out in a very hairy spot. We follow his voice and find him a couple meters below the cliff band and the prospects below are not good. Too deep to climb out. Can't see a line. We can't see an exit for him for the trees. Visibilty is coming and going as the clouds roll through. It's getting towards sunset too. We shout at him to sit tight and Al goes for the ski patrol. Hours later we learn that he was rescued - and will have a nice bill from the rescue service. Doh! :eek:

Chain how-to
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Mixmaster Vic

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Dave the Wave

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Spot the cliffed out dude - hint - look directly under the tallest tree on the cliff line
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[Ripzalot]

Sunday - we woke to a continuation of the dump. There's no way I'm leaving this for the sketchy conditions at La Grave, so we head out for a local resort. Dumping all the way! I never saw that much snow on the highway. I thought I was going to have to put my chains on before getting around Montreux. It was 60kph all the way down the autoroute. I opted for Bruson (Verbier) as it has great tree skiing and the much needed visibility for dumpage conditions. I was also hoping not to have to chain up, but I did with only a couple kms before the ski station. We made it to La Chable, but as soon as we started the short ascent to Bruson, we started spinning. We headed down to the la Chable parking lot to put the chains on and as we go around he corner there's another car coming the other direction at us, locked up and sliding straight towards us. I don't know how I did it, half instinct and half accidentally, but I spun the steering and gassed it, which through the car into a sideways slide. My car slide out of the way perfectly with less than a couple cms between us as he slid by. It was like the two cars were doing a slow motion ballet. The guy even turned around afterwards and got out to share the laugh with us. Hilarious and adrenalizing! Anyways, we got the chains on and drove up to Bruson. We headed up the lift and in the dumpage conditions and accidentally missed the second lift to the top. we had to track back down to the bottom stations. But it was bomber! The run to the bottom is a blue run that does a bunch of switchbacks down. If you do straight down you can get a series of 100m or so pitches that cross the piste over and over. These inbetween pitches were waist deep and fluffy! I bombed like a madman. The boys try to follow but it's just too much pow for a couple FL jongs. Vic bails and swims out of chest deep pow at one point. We find our way down and make it back up to the top on the next lift. From the top the piste is cut up knee deep but it's big in the trees - waist but felt like chest deep at times. Just point down go and flow. Suh-weetness all day long. We creep back home with it still dumping. Unreal day. :D

JONG!

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WOW!

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YIKES!

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So nice

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And deep

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Dave

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Vic

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[Ripzalot]

Ok, so I'm getting to the La Grave part.....

Monday - the dump is forecast to stop sometime on Monday, so we opt to drive down to La Grave on Monday morning. It's still snowing as we leave and still snowing halfway down to La Grave. We arrive just before noon. I went ahead and bought a 3 day pass instead of paying day by day (big mistake). From the reports I was getting, it was sounding pretty decent, if not good. But as we passed P1 I saw the conditions and realized how crappy it really was. Sorry summitteers, but it was grim compared to Switz. P2 to P1 was sketchy, P3 to P2 was okay, even slightly fun, but that was it.The Glacier was closed. Dammit I left waist deep pow for a crappy P3 to P2 run! Oh well we're here now. Make the best of it. Two runs from P3 to P1 (bailing to P2 is not an option for snowboarders - it's too short anyways!) and we're done. The picking around the rocks from P2 to P1 just absolutely sucked. Later, we hook up with TeleAl and LITT at the gite for dinner and some chartruese and genepi shots. We stumble back to the Chalets de la Meije and stop by the Roo residence for a meetup with the other summitteers. Fun group, glad we were able to hook up at least once! Unfortunately, we were out of sync with their plans which called for Alpe d'Huez tomorrow. Damn 3 day passes.... :mad:

Tuesday, we head back up La Grave and find LITT and TeleAl waiting below. LITT isn't interested in going up (lame!) so Al's hands are tied. We bail and head up. Visibility is now fine (clearing bluebird skies and not a lot of wind) so we do a run down the Chancel route. Again, from P3 to the P2 range was ok, but then the rocks started poking up. ROCK! ROCK! ROCK! became our mantra. We had swapped boards around since Dave's only board was only a 158, so Dave was on Vic's 166, and Vic was on my 170 (I was on my 177). So I kept a close eye on Vic and let him know about every rock! We had a fun first half of the run, then Vic got himself in a low spot (stay high stay high) and had to climb out. That about whooped his ass, and that was still a ways before the wicked traverse through the trees to P1. By the time we made it to P1, Vic was pooped. Vic bails and Dave and I go back up for another one. We do the Vallons de la Meije again, and it was pretty fun in good light although we had to climb out of a half-descended couliour (half descended, Dave was fortunate to let me find out first!). We do it again and then bail. A 3 run day. Dinner at the Au View Guide restaurant. 5 stars (for La Grave)! :D:D:D:D:D

La Grave

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Le Meije

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Le Meije close up

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Girose Glacier

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View from above

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Dave drops into the abyss

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Trios Amigos

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Whoooa

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Fo shizzle

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A place for a damn fine meal - Au Vieux Guide

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Haarmp!

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Haarmp!

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[Ripzalot]

Wednesday - we've had enough of La Grave so time to make a move someplace else. Roo said Alpe d'Huez was good the day before, so we opted for that. It turns out to be the better of our summit days. Although the Pic Blanc was closed due to avy conditions, the Sarenne run was open via the Marmotte 3 lift, and was a hoot going down. Looooong run with a bit of a crowd at times but totally fun. Then came the flat part. One of the longest flattest run-outs I've been on. Again, sometimes it does suck to be a snowboarder. We head over to the Oisans (?) side which was suprisingly good. Apparently, the lower parts of the resort fared much better than the higher which was wind-ripped. We found lots of nice cut up loose pow all over and some nice wide empty runs. We do some runs, lunch, some more runs, and then head back to Alpe d'Huez proper. We head back up for a couple more runs from Marmotte 3. The village is dead apres ski, so we grab a quick pizza & beer and scram.

Thursday, we're beat. Hammered. Knackered. Up late and not motivated for any more crap conditions. We putz around the apartment, then head out for a drive up the Col du Lauteret. We end up in Serre Chevalier to find a near empty resort. Those big wide long empty pistes just staring at us. I almost decide to bolt back to LG to retrieve our boards but laziness prevailed. We putz around some more, and head back over the col to find some kiteboarders ripping it up. Damn, I forgot the kite! Would have been nice for a day like today. Oh well. Back to LG for more laziness. Can't find the Roo crew, so we are eating at a local restaurant in LG.

Friday, last day. We've had enough. I don't even care about going up but we have a day left on the pass. We do it anyways. Up fairly early, one run and we're done. Ok, we've seen enough of La Grave and it's rock gardens for one trip. Pack it up, we bolt early for hopefully better conditions in Switz. As I head out of town - I can't be more than 5kms down the road - my car breaks traction around a corner and all of a sudden we're in a 180 on a sketchy mountain road. As we start to spin, I look over at Dave and Vic, and we all have this half-surprise-almost-break-into-a-laugh expression, but we don't laugh because we're all anticipating the hit. As the car spins, the front left bumper tags the mountain side of the road, continues its spin and backs up and over the snowbank on the mountain side of the road. It grinds down it a ways, teetering back and forth a bit as if it were going to roll, then stops. So here we are with the car jacked up backward off the side of the road. Dave and Vic jump out, another car stops and two burly big guys rush over and start picking up my front end. Within a minute we're freed off the snowbank. A cursory inspection reveals my front bumper ripped half off and surprisingly no serious damage other than that. To make matters more complicated, the damage took out my fog lights, which I was relying on getting us back to Switz since my low beams mysteriously burned out a couple nights before. So here we are at about 2:30PM and about 3 hours to the border. Can I make it home before nightfall? Hell yeah I can! 150kph on the autoroute home and I pull off the highway in Lausanne just as it gets too dark. The last 2km I drive with my high beams on, pissing off the Swiss drivers one after another. Ahhh, it was good to be home. But what was it going to be like here? :)

Dave at Alpe d'Huez

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The view

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Col du Lauteret

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Le Meije at Sunset

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Verglas frequent

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[Ripzalot]

Saturday - we head up to Villars for hopefully a fun easy day of piste skiing. Hell yeah, that's exactly what it was! It could not have been more beautiful. Still cold as hell, but little wind and bluebird skies. Seems that the swiss don't like the cold, so there were few lift lines all day. Great day. One of the best days of the trip.

Sunday, we do a similar routine but this time we start in Les Diablerets. The mission was intended for Glacier3000 but it was still closed, so we start in Vers d'Eglise. We meet up with TeleAl and spend the day doing speed runs all over the resort and over into Villars. Another excellent day. We even go for a real lunch on the mountain, including a couple bottles of wine. Nicely done! We poured ourselves out of the restaurant and began our traverse back to the Les Diablerets side, feeling good and loose.


Villars

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TeleAl

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He's nuts for Leysin!

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Mind-numbingly beautiful

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Totally cheesed again

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Haarmp!

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[Tantrum]

Looks llike a great time. So, Floridians bring good snow, huh? Send them our way next time.:D

[NoKnees]

Looks like you had a sweet trip. Starts with pow, ends with blue skies and good mix between... Sweet....

So where was the swallowtail the first couple days? Knee to waist deep and you're on a regular board? Sup with that?

Bummer about La Grave and Swallowmania... Next year maybe... You guys were having too much fun elsewhere to worry about it...

Little dissapointed though... 1 week of photos and no cute butt photos?

[Ripzalot]

Looks like you had a sweet trip. Starts with pow, ends with blue skies and good mix between... Sweet....

So where was the swallowtail the first couple days? Knee to waist deep and you're on a regular board? Sup with that?

Bummer about La Grave and Swallowmania... Next year maybe... You guys were having too much fun elsewhere to worry about it...

Little dissapointed though... 1 week of photos and no cute butt photos?

ah, the sad tale of the swallowtail (pun intended).....the first day was the first day out after (during) the dump, which was the first snow in 3 weeks. before the dump, it was dire. some resorts had actually begun shutting down and scaling back operations. so the dump came on basically nothing. i didn't want to risk the O'Sin on rocks. both times i could have easily used it with minimal or no damage. (i think i hit the TOPS of some fenceposts a few times - heehee). the second day at Bruson i did the same thing. i just decided my 177 was good enough in the pow, so why risk it in unknown territory.

i'm saving it for G3000, which fully opened yesterday. although i hear the Combe is still sketchy. apparently during the dump the wind was ripping through there from the wrong direction - straight up the valley. so everything is wind-sheared. but on the bright side, it was the same situation as last year and i was hitting knee to thigh deep pow within the next two weeks. knock on wood..... we do have a little snow on the forecast starting this weekend. we also have some more friends arriving for a week stay here. what's up with visitors bringing the snow? i should start paying people to come out. :)

the only cute butt photos you would get from la grave would be my own! <eeewww> the guy to girl ratio is about 300 to 1. it was weird being in an environment where we saw virtually NO females for such a long stretch. the woman who worked at the lift station did have a nice moustache tho. :eek:

[NoKnees]

Cool... Just had to give you a bad time. That was some pretty sweet looking powder and no matter the tool, it's looked fun to ride. I'm sure the 177 did a more than adequate job. I'm sure you'll get a chance to give it a ride up at G3000. In due time...

Now back to work...... Wishing I was somewhere else...

[CanariaChick]

Snowboarding in beautiful conditions, having fun with friends, spinning cars, drinking beer, shizzle dizzle... :D

Thanks for the fantastic photos!