Summer skiing at Tignes

 Tignes is a remarkable ski destination in many ways (for the lowdown on Tignes, click here). Still, to my mind, its most significant attribute is that it enables skiers to break up the interminable timespan between ski seasons. Spending the summer in Saint Gervais - Mont Blanc, I am no more than two hours away from Tignes. So yesterday I skied the Grande Motte glacier. In the early morning, the slopes felt like no more than near-vertical ice rinks, but after a couple of hours in the sun, something approaching a corn cycle took form, and the skiing became really exciting and fun. This day on the glacier also allowed me to dial in my new skiing equipment that I just bought for the upcoming 2025/2026 season in St Gervais. It feels like the height of privilege to be able to enjoy skiing in mid-summer. I'm not sure what could possibly beat that!

The infrastructure put in place to make all this possible is pretty impressive. First is the funicular train. This is a cog train that speeds through the mountain from Val Claret at 2100 m (6,890 feet) elevation and races the two miles plus to the base of the Grand Motte glacier at 3302 m (11,337 feet) or an elevation gain of 932 m (3056 feet). This is done in seven minutes! From there, you can either ski down to the Vanoise quadruple chair and take that back up or, better yet, get directly on the tram. That tram takes you from the Grand Motte glacier at 3302 m to its top station at 3456 m (12,000 feet). That is an aerial tramway, the only one with an observation deck on top accessible via a spiral staircase in the tram. In all there are five operating lifts in the summer. It's close to 100 in winter for the "Espace Killy", which pools the Tignes and Val d 'Isere lift systems.

Here are some pictures to get you an overview of what summer skiing at Tignes can look like:

La Grande Motte at 3,656m or 12,000 feet, as taken from my hotel room
some 5,000 feet lower using zoom.

La Grande Motte taken from the tram base station at about 11.000 feet elevation.

 

The funicular train that speeds through the mountain
from Val Claret 6,890 feet and races the two miles plus
and an elevation gain of 3056 feet. 

The cable car with the "flight" deck on top. For better
pictures of that deck, click here.

This picture shows that it's not all hardship in the sub-zero
temperatures, even on the glacier. This picture is taken closer
to noon when the sun dominates the experience.

...on the subject of of easier enjoyment, here is Tignes Lac
at about 2100 m or 7,000 feet where my hotel was. In the
distance you can see, on the horizon,
the Grande Motte glacier.

Notre Dame de la Gorge - Aiguille Croche

ANGLAIS:  Yesterday was a biggish day with a hike from the trailhead parking closest to Notre Dame de la Gorge (1200 m - 3,900 feet) to Aiguille Croche (2,487 m - 8,260 feet). The round-trip is approximately 22 km (14 miles) with a net elevation gain of 1,350 m (ca. 4,500 feet). This is not a technically challenging route. Essentially, it's just a rather long and strenuous walk. Here are some pictures (click to enlarge):

FRENCH: Hier était une journée un peu chargée avec une randonnée depuis le parking de Notre-Dame de la Gorge (1 200 m) jusqu'à l'Aiguille Croche (2 487 m). L'aller-retour fait environ 22 km (14 miles) avec un dénivelé positif net de 1 350 m (environ 4 500 pieds). Ce n'est pas un itinéraire techniquement difficile. Il s'agit simplement d'une marche plutôt longue et un peu ardue. Voici quelques photos (cliquez pour agrandir) :

Aiguille Croche from/du Signal.

Aig. Croche & avalanche mitigation.

Vue of/de Hauteluce & Val Joly from/depuis Col Joly.

From left to right: Dome and Hut of the Gouter to Mt Blanc.
De gauche a droite : Dome et refuge du Gouter au Mt Blanc.

Animals around the Tré-la-Tête glacier - Animaux de Tré-la-Tête

Here are a couple of pictures of animals I saw today between the Tré-la-Tête hut and the hut of the Conscrits. 

Voici deux photos d’animaux prises aujourd’hui entre les refuges de Tré-la-Tête et des Conscrits. 

Moving into Saint Gervais Mont Blanc

 Finally, the moment has come! This is a very highly anticipated development. Our home in France was, until now, in the French southwest, a gorgeous and historic part of the country, but that (critically, as it turned out) was devoid of mountains. This has been fixed as we have now moved from Dordogne to Haute-Savoie to live on the ledges of the actual Mont Blanc. Western Europe's highest peak at an elevation of 15,781 feet. It lives up to its name just fine, even through global warming, as you can see below, the summit is white no matter the season.

St Gervais comes with a few irreplaceable assets: 

- The cog train that takes you to the Mt Blanc "Royal" trail head.

- 110 lifts in the St Gervais ski resort, which includes Megeve, Les Contamines, and Combloux.

- Frances's highest county with Mt Blanc in the county at 15,781 feet.

Here are some pictures taken today from Mont Joux:

Mont Blanc15,781 feet and Aiguille de Bionassay.

Left arrow: Aiguille du Midi (tram), 12,605 ft.
Right arrow: Refuge (hut) du Gouter, 12,516 ft.
You will have to enlarge to distinguish any of this.

From Mt Joux, looking west (left in the valley) is Megeve.

From Mt Joux, looking east: first St Gervais on the ledge. On 
the valley floor is Sallanches (Rossignol world hq). The 
suspended road in the distance gets you to Chamonix. 

Is actual winter finally here?

 This was my 40th tour this season, and all prior ones have been anywhere from marginal to average at best. This is our worst season on record, with, at this time, a season total of just 97", a pretty hurtful statistic. Having said that, in the last 72 hours, we got 11", so this morning, I went to the northernmost couloir below Wheeler Peak. Actually, to be precise, it is between Wheeler Peak and Mount Walter. I went solo, and I was aiming for summitting Mount Walter. I got really close, but just about 400-500' below the summit, I hit a hollow slab, so I decided to skip the summit (there were no obvious ways to work around that slab without spending an inordinate amount of time post-holing). Instead, I decided to get the best ski out of the almost 3,000-foot drop I was looking down.  After all the false alerts from the prior storms, my expectations were low, and  I expected the skiing would be OK, i.e., a lot better than the last several outings. But as it turned out, this ski was meant to be the reward of the day and the season. This was, by a gazillion miles, the best ski of the season. I had a foot+ on a highly stable snowpack, and the skiing was absolute world-class! It didn't hurt that I got first tracks; I saw no one else on the entire mountain. Here are some pictures taken from that west face.

This is a panoramic view of, from left to right, Lake Fork
Peak, Kachina Peak, and in the distance, the Taos resort.

Here is a close-up of Lake Fork Peak. It is finally getting
filled up and should be a good ski now.

Here is a close-up of the "backside" of the Taos ski resort

This picture is to give you a sense of how much snow there
is on the Wheeler Pk - Mt Walter west face.

The Taos backcountry is slowly getting ready for some turns

 The last storm has considerably improved the conditions in the cirque around Williams Lake. Starting tomorrow and up until Monday we are getting some snow. Hopefully, it's a lot, in which case, many of the lines we can clearly see in these pictures could be in condition. Here are a couple of pictures taken from a couloir on Wheeler's West face yesterday:

The moon over Kachina Peak.

Another foot of snow and some of these couloirs
should be in condition,

What a difference a few inches can make...

This is my 20th outing of the 24/25 season, and the few inches of snow that fell between Christmas night and Friday completely transformed the Williams Lake trail. What was once rutted and rundown now feels like a magical winter wonderland. With five to six inches of fresh snow, everything around you is pure white and glistening!

Check out some pictures from yesterday. The first two? Let’s call them: “Find the avalanche path...”

Looking over Williams Lake to Lake Fork Peak, elev. 12,881'.

View of the southern ridge line.

Wind plume over Wheler Peak, elevation 13,161'

Lake Fork Peak through the trees.

The bog above and south of Williams Lake.

Frozen lakes and rivers, known as the "Highways of Winter," 

were used by Stone Age skiers. Thanks to these natural 

pathways, they could often travel farther and faster 

in winter than during the warmer seasons.