Just back from a great 2 week trip to the western Caucuses, this area to the west of Elbrus is perfect for ski touring with lots of mountains around 3000m that you can access from the road. The days were all fairly big with skins of between 1000 and 1400m as with all ski touring trips we encountered all sorts of snow conditions from 1400m of powder one day to seemingly endless crust on others. We flew via Moscow to Min Vody the main access point for the Caucuses where we were met by our Russian friend and guide Alexey Shustrov, Alexey has been waging a one man campaign to open the Caucuses fro ski touring. He has had great success bringing French and Swiss groups to the region but we were the first British ski touring party to visit the area. The problem that any potential British groups face is the FCO advice against non essential travel to the North Caucuses region; this can create problems when finding insurance. We got round this by using www.ihi.com who were very helpful and provided cover without any problem. During our time in the Caucuses we found the people to be friendly and interested in where we from and what we were doing. There was no sign of any problems and Alexey has been bringing groups of westerners to the area for years. We split our time between the area round the small village of Arhyz then travelled to Dombai the only real ski lift in the region where we explored the surrounding valleys. The Caucuses are a beautiful area with amazing potential, I though it was so good I am going back in May to try and ski Elbrus from the rarely visited North side.
Alexey has made a short video of the trip which you can view below.
ski touring in the western caucuses from Bruce Goodlad on Vimeo.
After a slow start the Alps are beginning to look a bit more like a proper winter, big dumps of snow around New Year and the following week have made for some great conditions. I was skiing with Andy and Kat Congleton over New Year and the following week we had some soggy skiing on Grand Montet then it got colder and we had some awesome powder in St Gervais and some short tours near Megeve to get some great tracks. After that it was off to La grave for a week with an old mate Andy Huntington team. La Grave is all off piste and it had dumped 60cm just before we arrived. We started the week skiing in Monetier in the trees then had 2 days on La Grave before half the team went home. With the remaining 3 we skinned to the top of the Col du lauze and skied all the way to St Christophe fantastic. We tried to have a day off but failed as the snow was to good so we had a half day on wed then back to La Grave for more couloirs on thur and finished the week in Alpe d'Huez. Check out the video
La Grave Jan 10 from Bruce Goodlad on Vimeo.
After la Grave it was back to the UK for a surprise 40th then back home for my brothers coming out for a weeks skiing, this overlapped with Kates brothers and various family friends staying in St Gervais quite a few of them had never skied the Vallee Blanche so we had a big team descent on Sunday in perfect weather.
Scott Goodlad Vallee Blanche Jan 2010 from Bruce Goodlad on Vimeo.
We didnt have any new snow for most of the week but we still mannaged to find great skiing in Courmayeur and fresh tracks for part of every day in St Gervais. It hosed with snow on Friday night to finish the week with a great powder day discovering some great new runs.
Merry Christmas everyone.
The winter is now in full swing all the ski resorts are now open with reasionable cover. The snow pack is pretty complicated so be carefull out there. We have had some very cold conditions with a shallow snow pack created depth hoar then fresh snow on high winds. A colleague mentioned that he had never seen so many avalanche crown walls in the Chamonix valley before. I have been out on the skis a bit enjoying a couple of great days in Val dIsere with Kates brother Charles finding some good off piste then Kate and I went to La Grave for the weekend. Cover there was thin but good, the traverses to P1 and the ski to the valley were pretty thin so look out for rocks covered in a thin layer of snow. Have a great festive season.
I had my last Mont Blanc of the season this week for Mont Blanc Guides, we were blessed with great weather, we warmed up at the Orny hut, then climbed Pointe Lachanal from the Midi lift before heading for the Blanc. Summit day was perfect with all 7 of the clients reaching the top. Unfotunatley on the descent Cheryl came down with altitude sickness and was very efficiently evacuated from the mountain by the PGHM in a helicopter. I'm off to Corsica now on holiday but will post up dates via the twitter feed. Have a great Autumn.
BMG Alpine Assessment 2009
This year’s assessment was convened by Terry Ralphs with Bruce Goodlad working with him for the week. Pete Rowlands, Paul Warnock and Phil Ashby were on the full assessment with Tim Blakemore and Hannah Burrows Smith joining us for some of the week. We met in Kandersteg on the North side of the Bernese Oberland hoping to escape the poor weather to the south. The team headed to the Frunden hut on Sunday morning where we looked at teaching Ecole du Glace and the boys demonstrated there ability to perform a crevasse rescue. As we returned to the hut the Guardian asked us if we were able to rescue 4 climbers from the Gallet Grat which we did. Unfortunately for Tim he arrived at the hut just as we were preparing to head up the hill. You can find a bit more about the rescue here. The weather was very poor overnight with 5cm of fresh snow as we had not made it back to the hut until well after midnight we had a short day on the Frunden Horn which gave very testing conditions. The forecast was still for poor weather so the following day we left the hut early walking to the valley then driving to the Gastlosen, we traversed this superb limestone ridge AD+ in sunshine while we could see bad weather to the south.
On Wednesday we were in Saas Fee to try and look at some ice climbing on the North Face of the Allalinhorn. The weather was terrible and we abandoned the day when both teams were hit by a small avalanche. With the weather continuing to be poor from the South we spent the night in Leysin then headed into the Grand Muveran massif and traversed the Arete Veirge AD to refuge Giacomini at Anziendaz. We finished the week making an East to West Traverse of the Argentine AD+ in superb conditions.
The candidates are to be congratulated for their efforts and enthusiasm in very difficult conditions.
I was working for Mont Blanc Guides this week on their 6 day Mont Blanc Program. We started the week from the Albert Premier hut climbing the Tete Blanche. On Tue we traversed the Valley Blanche finding some interesting crevassed terrain on the way to Italy. On Wed we headed to the Tete Rousse hut then climbed Mont Blanc in perfect weather on Thursday.
I was climbing with Stephen and Jacqueline from Hong Kong for the last 2 weeks based from Chamonix but travelling about a bit to get the best weather and conditions. We started tthe trip by traversing the Crochu, on mon we were planning to traverse the Entreve but the Italian side of the range was clouded in so we went to the Col d'Aravis and traversed the arete Marion which was superb, we were the only people there.
The weather looked a bit mixed on tue so we climbed the Via Corde just getting caught by the rain at the very top. On wed headed to the Petit Aiguille Vert it was amazing how little snow there was, we had to climb a pitch of ice to get onto the ridge and turned back at about half height due to horrible black ice. We had a day off on Thur then traversed the Cosmiques arete on Friday in very dry but easy conditons, Sat we did some mutli pitch climbing at valorcine before heading through to Zermatt looking for more snow. Sunday was a perfect morning to traverse the breithorn and head down to the Ayas hut w where we climbed Pollox from before heading back to Chamonix. We had a rest on Tue then traversed the Entreve just ahead of the weather on wed, we got caught out on Thur in some really bad weather in the Aiguille Rouge then climbed a superb 12 pitch route at Machaby to finish the trip.
I was climbing with Julian and Emily this week, we met in Vicosoprano in the Bregalia home of some of the best granite rock climbing in the Alps. We started climbing the NE ridge of the Spazzacaldera then the amazing needle of the Fiamma. On Monday we climbed the superb S ridge of the Piz Balzet, on Tue we drove down to Lecco and traversed the Cresta Segantini a great Limestone ridge which felt very different to the recent granite. We had a more relaxed day on Wed doing some roadside cragging then swimming in Lake Como. We were back in the mountains on Thursday climbing the Meuli Route to the summit of the Punta Albigna, this is a superb long route with a great summit. We spent the night in the Albigna hut where Emily recieved her A level results 4 A's so well done to her. We finished the week climbing the SW arete of the Piz dai Pal which is a lovely little route about 20 minutes from the hut with a 50m abseil to get off.
I had three days climbing at the Grimsel pass with Graeme Ettle this week, we started with a great 6 pitch road side route on Tuesday which was one of the first routes to dry after recent rain. On Wed we walked towards the Gelmerhorner hut to climb the Rosti pillar. This gave 7 superb pitches on great granite before lying back into easy ground where we abseiled off. After letting things dry off for a couple of days we headed into Eldorado hoping to climb the super classic route Motorhead. The route looked dry and with an early start we were the first team. The climbing was superb but hard for the grade we felt it would get a hard E2 5c if it was in the UK but the more granite climbing you do the easier it would probably feel. Although there are bolts they were placed on the lead and many of them are not in very useful places so you need a rack and you still need to make hard moves above gear. An amazing route thats been on my list for about 15 years.
I was climbing with Dick this week with the Matterhorn as the sunning plan, we met on a grey monday morning and decided to head to Zermatt via some rock climbing on route. Between the showers we climbed at the excellent roadside venue of Dorenaz near Martigny, this has the advantage of being very quick to dry and is next to the road. The weather was much better on tuesday so we traversed the Breithorn which was aperfect day out above the clouds. It gave Dick a chance to climb something more difficult and get some more acclimatisation. Wed we had a relaxing morning then walked to the Hornli hut. Thursday was a perfect day clear skies and no wind for our ascent. The Hornli ridge was in perfect conditions with no snow until the shoulder we were up and down in plenty of time to catch the lift down which a few other teams will have missed. A great day out on one of the Alps most iconic peaks.