LA GRAVE MINI SUMMIT - THE RIPZALOT REPORT

[Ripzalot]

I bailed a little early from the La Grave mini summit, so here is the the early report... please excuse my grammer, spelling, and sentence fragments. I'm still suffering from post-trip high. For those not in the know, La Grave is a unique and serious ski resort in the southern French Alps. There is only one lift and no groomed pistes. (There used to be several drag lifts on the glacier but they have been closed due to being eaten by last summer's heatwave. Oh yeah, they have now installed a chair from just below the 2400 station, but it's rather useless.) It's all high alpine offpiste type routes down, so pretty much experts only.

Saturday - I'm up at the buttcrack of dawn doing the 4 hour drive down to La Grave. As I make my way up the mountain road from Grenoble, it starts snowing and it doesn't stop all day long. I decide to stop at Les Deux Alpes on the way and ride for a half day, as I wait for the others to arrive. The avalanche warning is 5 (out of 5!) and it's snowing with near total whiteout visability. Only the lower runs are open. After a short tour of the west side, I make my way to the only tree run that I can find across the valley on the east side. Good powder, knee to thigh deep all thru the trees. After 4 top to bottom runs, my legs are over. A good warmup for La Grave.

Sunday - First day up La Grave with Andy and Simon. It's still snowing with low visibility, not quite as bad as on Saturday. Avalanche warning is 4. They seem to rate the avalanche risk here one lower than the regional bulletins. Several days up to the summit have been a 5 and the local news rated the region a 5, with several special news stories specifically about the high avalanche risk. Oh well, we're here and we want to ski! La Grave is only open to 2400m, so we ride in the trees from 2400 to P1 (1800m) with a run down to the village at midday. The trees were super fun - thigh to hip deep snow just flowing down like water at times. I think we were all beat by about 3pm. That night, Chad arrives from Chicago. Unfortunately, KLM does him the extra favor of rerouting all of his baggage to God-knows-where, so he's bunged until his gear arrives. To make matters worse, Monday is gonna be going off...

Monday - A peak out the window reveals blue skies and a beautiful sunrise hitting the Alpine peaks. La Grave is open to 3200m! We're about a half hour late up the first lift, not super eager to be the first ones up due to the high avy warnings, still 5 according to the news, and a 4 according to the La Grave personnel. We arrive at the top to find a monstrous view of the peak La Meije and the huge powder-laden mountain below us. There are already tracks all over the place, so people must not be too worried about avys. We spend the day throwing huge carves in big powder. Both right and left of the 3200 station are wide open and super fun runs. Note: snowboarders (like me) must suffer thru the dreaded traverses at the end back to P1. Not easy and not a whole lot of fun either! Nonetheless, La Grave delivers the goods. Awesome day! And Chad's bags arrive that evening (bummer!).

Tuesday - We head over the pass to Serre Chevalier to search out some leftover pow in the trees. As we head over the pass the weather changes from cloudy and overcast to sunshine, but windy. The upper alpine slopes are all wind-scoured, firm but still soft enough to carve on. The pistes are unbelievable. We spent the afternoon doing Bode Miller impersonations down a looooong red/black piste run. Andy found an interesting under-the-chair route that took us down a series of steep bumps and drops all the way down. Excellent day!

Wednesday - Back to La Grave. With the arrival of Alistair, we finally have a guide. Back up to 3200m for a series of interesting decents. On the first descent, I have to bail as my snowboard can't handle the traverse. So I do a couple of open bowl runs in packed powder down to P1. We hook back up and then Alistair leads us down a very fun and beautiful route through two couliours. The first is Banana Couliour. As we approached it, all you can see is a white lip and a wall of rocks going straight down. I think I manage three turns the whole way down. The snow was pretty hard packed and mogulled out which made for some pretty tricky turns on a 177 snowboard. Falling is not an option here. Little did I know this was only the warm up for the next couliour. After a short traverse, we're lead into a fun gully which I opened up at full speed, almost missing the entrance to the Freux Couliour. This couliour is steeper and probably 4 times longer than the first. Like Banana, the top is super steep and mogulled out. I think I managed about seven or eight turns on this one. Alistair loses a ski about a third of the way down. The run out is filled with debris so we cross over into the tress and make our way down to the final (super nasty!) traverse. No real trail thru the trees, just traverse as best as you can on your own. I lose my goggles someplace, probably hanging from a branch someplace. Other than that, it was a astounding run!

Pics to follow...

[Ripzalot]

Saturday, Les Deux Alpes

[Ripzalot]

Sunday, La Grave


2400 to P1 tree run

[Ripzalot]

Monday, La Grave




Moi


Moi again









What people are riding here...something is wrong with my board's tail



I found a rock!


Chancel

[Ripzalot]

Tuesday, Serre Chevalier




The Mini-Summitteers - Truth, BrownMonkey and Bad Roo


A huck gone wrong....

[Ripzalot]

Wednesday, back at La Grave





La Meije


Simon checks out the Banana Couliour


Andy rips the couliour






The Freux Couliour









Sunset over Le Meije

[Karl Stall]

great report, but a bit understated don't you think. sounds amazing. sucks about truth's ski equip.

[up an down]

great pics!

[ulty_guy]

damn, nice. just couldn't swing more than a few days away from work, unfortunately.

[The AD]

Originally posted by Ripzalot

"des pentes raides" Does this translate to "panty raids?" What's that got to do with avalanches?

Those are awesome photos, thanks for posting.

[bagtagley]

If you can't understand the warning signs, does that mean you can just ignore them?

Nice TR Ripz, looks like a blast.

[xboat]

holy freakin' shit!!!!! caw!! caw!! CAW!!!

i know it takes a bunch of time to not only take the pics but also upload and do up a trip report. you sir are the MAN!
thanks a bunch.

get a pic of someone launching off into this background - that would be sweeeeet!



truth - you still planning on the mini?

[The AD]

Originally posted by bagtagley
If you can't understand the warning signs, does that mean you can just ignore them?

Of course. "Risque Fort 4. That doesn't sound that bad, let's go!"

[PlayHarder]

Nice.

[sick.bird]

CAW! CAW!! CAW!!!

[rightcoast]

thanks...great pics!!

[board]

WOW ! Great pics and tons of them too !

[Cornholio]

Excellent! Way to go, doods!

Something tells me the "Les Freaks" sign should have been pointing the other way for this shot, but whatever:

[jibij]

great pics Ripz. thanks for sharing.
what's up with all the pointy split-tail boards? is that the board of choice throughout euroloand? looks like lots of clickers and step-ins too.

[The AD]

Originally posted by Ripzalot
Sunday, La Grave

And who knew that Audi made ski clothes! That must be bad_roo, eh?

[Ripzalot]

Yeah, it was a blast. Just wait till y'all see the pics that Andy and Simon got. I'm sure their pics will make mine look like sheer crap. Simon had some beauties with his 6MP SLR. And then there's helmet cam footage too...mmmmm....

[Ripzalot]

Originally posted by The AD
And who knew that Audi made ski clothes! That must be bad_roo, eh?

yep - the one and only "boy racer" roo!

[Ripzalot]

Originally posted by jibij
great pics Ripz. thanks for sharing.
what's up with all the pointy split-tail boards? is that the board of choice throughout euroloand? looks like lots of clickers and step-ins too.

yeah, la grave is big time for swallowtail powder boards. they are hosting "swallowmania" next month. i gotta find a way to go!

http://www.swallowmania.com/

i was surprised to see the variety of bindings being used with the swallowtails. i saw a lot of clickers and other step ins. i was expecting more hardboot setups but didn't see a single one. step-ins may be the choice because you can rig them with a release system in case of an avalanche. just my guess.

[Steven S. Dallas]

Great TR, great pics! That is some full-on photojournalism.

One question: how is www.swallowmania.com not a porn site?

[subtle plague]

hmmm i wish i had been there.... ive been in the Sauerland (100m vertical ) instead.

the good old freaux.

YOu should have skied banana/le lac on early monday ---> steep bumps are not as much fun as steep pow. *smartass*
concerning the avalanche risk: you can usually lower one grade on a hard-tracked mountain, so la grave is usually one below the untracked backcountry.
there are superfun lines in the trees. i wanna see the video !

btw. NOW IT IS MY TURN ! i am going down to the krippenstein tonight. 50-60cm fresh in the last 48hours and 150+ in the last 14 days...