Me&myself - Conquering Mt Dolent

Ok, I decided that I was posting too much pictures of my friends, and not enough of myself. Thus, I was sort of dismissing my French nationality, which is associated with being show off, proud, and stuff like that... So this post is all about me!

Me looking strong, before the climb. I know, that's easy! :D

Me and the funny little hut. Believe it or not, it can accommodate up to 14 people, with a "relative" comfort...

Me in the inside. We tested the "relative" comfort, as we were 13. I slept well nevertheless...

Me making dinner at 5pm (?!).

Me getting into trouble after I lost time taking pictures of the sunrise. My climbing buddy wasn't very happy about that... oops...

Me looking soooooooo strong! :D Note the tilted helmet which I kept all the day long. Classy, isn't it?

On that one, I guess I am looking like I am pooing.

Looking strong again, at the summit of Mt Dolent. At that stage, I got into trouble again cos I coiled the rope wrong, and it was full of knots... Oops again...

Skiing on grass...

Back to the car. Looking as proud&strong as a Frenchman can be, with Mt Dolent in the background!

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Vanessa for taking most of the pics. But maybe I should not thank her cos of all her nasty remarks during these 2 days, thats very bad for my ego! ;o)

Ski mountaineering around Grand-St-Bernard

Romaric: "How fit are you at the moment"
Xavier: "Depends for what..."
Romaric: "1800 of altitude gain. There is a steep-ish couloir on the way-up as well..."
Xavier: "Wooh, thats a bit long, but I guess I'll manage to follow"

That was his error! We climbed to the top of Mont Vélan (3727m) via the Hannibal couloir on the west side, and went down via the Valorsey glacier. I can tell you that Xav' had hard time to go up to the top, especially during the ascent of the 500m long* couloir... But, he did impressively well assuming that his first skitour of the year! Respect man.

His efforts were rewarded by a fantastic (with all the stresses Francis can put on this word!) ski run via the normal route, with 1000m of snow powder, followed by 1000m of excellent spring snow... and impressive scenery! Definitely one of my best (if not the best) skitour ever! I am sure Vanessa will confirm it, as well as Xavier when he will have forgotten the pain** of the way up! ;o)

Romaric

* the length, something I forgot to mention to Xavier... He may not have join if I would have! :D
** I know Travis, "it doesn't have to be fun to be fun", so I told Xavier!

The "embellie"

I found no exact translation for the word "embellie", maybe short&calm spell would be the most correct translation. Anyhow, when talking about the weather, it means it will be crap weather, then suddenly nice, and after a short period of nice weather, suddenly crap again.

That was the all plan of the day, planning on a short ski tour during the forecasted "embellie". With this word, I managed to motivate Vanessa and Julien to come along, in the aim of skiing "les Arpilles". We leaved Fribourg at 8am, under the rain... No needs to say that my companions teased me with my "embellie", but an "embellie" has to start by crap weather, right?

We reached the car park, no snow there! We have to carry the skis for a bit... The teasing about the quality of the plan was at its paroxysm then... And suddenly, the "embellie"! No need to say that my proudness reached its paroxysm quickly! Of course, the "embellie" was short, but sufficient to take advantage of the fresh (but not so light...) snow at the top, and make some good turns in untracked snow!

Romaric

PS: Julien didn't trust my (arguably dodgy) plans, didn't bring any sunscreen, and got bright red... Always trust Romaric's plans, even if they rarely works! :D
PS2: I didn't trust my plans neither, didn't bring any sunscreen, and got a bit sunburn as well...

The nerds...

I guess people imagine scientist like this: (Oliver didn't really dress up, actually :D)

But we are not that serious!

Ski&Ice climbing in Zinal

The weather has been rather cold the all last week, cold enough to get some decent conditions for ice climbing, for March. The first day hasn't been that successful as we were a bit too late, and the sun was starting to hit most of the climbs... So we went skiing instead, on the nice ski resort of Zinal, where there are some really nice off piste possibilities. After a nice evening&night at the Trift hotel*, we woke up early, and managed eventually to do some good ice climbing, which was probably the last occasion to do so this year. So that was good!

* The waitress was again very cute... From my (not so) large experience on the subject, it appears than most of the waitresses are nice looking in that region...

PS: you can see on the last pic that both me and Frenchy had matched clothe... That a bit gay, isn't it? :D

Murphy's law...

Three weeks ago, Gaelle&Jerome, Titi&Leslie and Denis were supposed to come to Fribourg for some ski touring... They didn't because of the bad weather forecast, and decided to come a next weekend. The forecast revealed wrong, and the weather was mostly sunny, just a bit windy... So, they came last weekend... But this time, the weather was worst than the forecasts were predicting... Classic Murphy's law...

So, despite a nice ski tour on Sunday, the weekend was not as sporty as planned... Instead, we went to the thermal baths in Charmey, and ate a fair amount of cheese... Almost the same as ski touring, eh?!

PS: yeah, it is sunny on the pics, which were taken during the couple of hours of sun we had on Sunday...

WE in Chamonix with Amelie, Donn&Jen

This time, we definitely ate more than we skied, but that was all good!