Skiers: Punx/Lil Punk
Date: February 1st 2005
Route: Un-Named Variant East Face Bellevarde
Aspect: East
Vertical Drop: 700m
This un-named variant
on the east face of bellevarde is a another line in the espace killy what rarely
gets skied. This variant is a east facing quite exposed 40 degree ramp, with a
small rock barrier grading the entrance.
On february 1st,
lil punk and i attempted to ski an un-named variant on the bellevarde. The weather
was perfect blue skis with 10 to 15mph winds. The temperature at 2100 meters
was -8 in the morning, rising to -3 by mid afternoon.
Fast Forward To 10.05am
From the top of the
grand pre, we traversed to the east. Then cut a high traverse via the south
face of charvet to a small col what takes you to the east face. From the col we
skied down to a small rock on the right of the line, to see if there is a small
passage we can ski through. We could not really see if there was any possible
way through, so i decided to traverse across to left to have a look. In the
short distance i went from the rock, the snow went from random pockets of wind slab,
to full on icy conditions. I got on the radio to tell lil punk that there is a
narrow rocky passage at the entry. Herein this news, lil punk decided he didn’t
want to ski this variant and ended up skiing the deversoir on the right of my
line instead. Now back to my line. I
side slipped carefully through the narrow passage in to the ramp. The snow
conditions didn’t improve once in the line. So i side slipped another 10 meters
to were it open’s up. At this point i noticed the snow has went from icy to
bomb proof. Not good. After 10 minutes of leg burning, lung exploding touchier i
made it out of the ramp and into the bowl. From the bowl i traversed under a
small cliff into the bottom section off deversoir and back to the manchet
chairlift.