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A thousand feet below us lay our accommodation for the night an isolated mountain refuge set in deep snow beside two small frozen lakes. From the steep ridge on which we balanced, we watched the last rays of the sun bathing the Mont Blanc range in golden light, while immediately south were the jagged towers and rock faces of 3,051m Aiguille de Fruit.
To reach this dramatic spot had required a strenuous bout of "skinning" on touring skis (the rear binding released for ascending and "skins" attached to the base to provide uphill traction). We were way above the lift-accessed pistes of the Trois Vallees resort of Courchevel 1650, but had only got here thanks to a week of training with the Eagle Ski Club in how to tackle every type of snow condition from untracked powder to the worst possible crud.
The course, based in Meribel, aims to introduce beginners to the skills of ski touring, or improve the techniques of those who already have some experience. It sounds like hard work, and it is. So why would you choose this option over simply peeling back the duvet and enjoying a leisurely breakfast of hot buttered croissants before taking a short ski-boot stomp to the nearest chairlift?
Well, if you really want to see the mountains in all their glory, and in an eco-friendly manner, ski touring is the way to go. This is how skiers enjoyed the mountains before the advent of lifts, and the sport is enjoying a bit of a resurgence among those who want to exchange the hubbub of lift queues and busy pistes for the untracked wilds of the back country and the gentle soughing of the wind across open snowfields.
The Eagle Ski Club organizes everything from resort-based ski touring and more strenuous multi-day hut-to-hut tours in the Alps and Rockies to full expeditions in the Arctic and remote mountain ranges such as the Ak-Shirak mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
But to go ski touring, you need to know how to ski in all conditions, and an introductory course such as the one in Meribel shows you how to do it far more quickly and safely than teaching yourself.
It's also vital that you have some knowledge of how to recognise potential avalanche slopes and perform an avalanche rescue before venturing away from the groomed runs.
This was apparent as we traversed a small snowfield beneath the 2,734m summit of Roc Merlet while making our ascent. A rapid series of "whoomps" skittered beneath the surface like lightning strikes, the sound of a recently fallen layer of snow compressing beneath us and a sign of potential avalanche conditions. My heart almost stopped; our guide Laurent carried on regardless. "The slope isn't steep enough to avalanche here," he said.
By the time we'd reached the ridge, the late afternoon sky was a palette of reds and oranges and deep azure. The highest peaks of the Alps surrounded us and we took time to admire the kind of isolated view that's unattainable when piste skiing before taking on the challenge of a slope varying from crust to powder, which was where the week's ski training came into its own. Even so, by the time I arrived at the refuge I was plastered in snow from a couple of head plants, and ready to enjoy a warming glass of wine beside the wood stove.
Set in a high, isolated bowl to the south of Courchevel, the refuge was as far removed from a traditional ski resort as you could get. However, we weren't able to enjoy the warmth of the stove just yet, for no sooner had we dumped our rucksacks full of equipment and food than Laurent had us back outside practising avalanche transceiver work in the rapidly gathering gloom. This is a vital skill when striking out into the backcountry each skier wears a transceiver which transmits a signal allowing them to be located should they have the great misfortune to be buried by an avalanche.
By the time we finished, the sky was speckled with stars, the temperature was down to -10C and it was so quiet that I swear I could hear the one shooting star I saw. We stumbled back into the refuge, where the wood stove had been stoked up by a French couple also staying overnight, and we enjoyed our food and wine by candlelight before retiring to basic but cosy bunks for the night.
Leaving the refuge before sunrise next morning, we soon warmed up with an ascent to a col which gave access down to the Vallee des Avals and then back to Courchevel 1650.
This time our high point revealed pale yellow dawn sunlight on Mont Blanc while a sliver of moon still hung above the glaciated peaks to the southwest, and then we enjoyed a tiring but exciting mix of powder skiing, survival skiing (ie no technique and lots of falling) and poling along the flat valley bottom to arrive back in Courchevel 1650 just as hoi polloi were hopping on to the first lifts of the day.
(China Daily by Alf Alderson February 10, 2006)
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