Touring more – tanning less

After summer comes fall, at least is seems so in La Grave. Overcast, kinda sorta raining a little in town, slight dust on the crust up higher and just deep and wet manky snow on lower parts. Sure is an interesting season. Still being in touring mode I went up towards Col du Lautaret hoping to find something worth a bit of sweating. After being dropped off by the nice salesman taking the effort to fit me and my pack and skis into his little car I quickly realized that today would be nothing like previous tours of last week. It was windy. And cold. And it was raining ever so slightly. Being the bonehead I am (and not wanting to have spent an hour in La Grave trying to get a ride up for nothing) I donned skins and headed up towards the Pic Blanc area looking for something fun to ski. Just skinning up from the road proved interesting, a whole lot of snow had disappeared in the last few days. However my skins have a proven history of working on gravel and rock, in mud and on tarmac. Today they even proved themselves in the chamois (or mufflon of whatever the little buggers are called) droppings which covered at lot of the ground where I crossed between snowfields. Winds improving in strength made me decide for a slightly shorter tour and halfway towards Pic Blanc I changed direction and booted up a muddy ridge for a line down a few smaller snowfields that seemed linkable by a few turns on grass and gravel. Just as I topped out on the ridge the rain picked up to the point where I started wondering why I hadn’t opted for some full-on weather protection gear. Anyways, knowing the road was like 10 minutes of skiing below me I could blame noone but myself for not having seen the rain coming and turned around earlier. Standing around in the wind changing and getting dressed for the descent was pretty interesting, not really cold at all but I started to understand that I might not be in for the run of the year either (well, I’d already guessed it’d be crap, but not THAT crappy). One turn, skis sink in like a metres and I dive in. Up again, gain speed, initiate turn. Whoops, I did it again. Security-ski mode engaged I had the worst run of the year so far back down to the road. As craptastic as it gets, having not have to fight for balance in conditions quite so bad for a while I found it really funny, especially given that I’d just spent two hours sweating on the ascent. Back at the road I spent a while removing mud from myself and my gear in the ditch before snapping a few pics of the Combeynot and Laurichard and myself hiding in my puffy jacket before extending my thumb and being picked up by the first car to come along. Sweet. Back in La Grave I had a coffee a Castillan before meeting Gunnar and Adam who’d skied the Freaux couloir in conditions not far behind what I’d encountered at the Col. They seemed to enjoy themselves too; it’s really nice being around people who manage to get some fun out of something that really isn’t all that funny in itself. After sitting around for a while, playing a prank on Adam and discussing Norway-related logistics we all went home for dinner.