Attempt at the Crochues - Glacier du Mort - Berard valley traverse
by overflow50
The day after Georgia and I skied the Crochues-Berard traverse Max had some free time and was in Cham so we headed out to try a slightly more commiting route into the Berard valley. Basically the plan was to do most of the traverse from the Col du Aig Crochues towards the Col du Berard before taking a hard right up 350m of 30-45º couloir before dropping over the ridge onto the Glacier du Mort and skiing into the Berard valley and out to Le Buet.
Unfortunately unlike the day before the weather didnt just look ominous...there was a change forecast to come through late in the day!
We got to the base of the couloir with no problems and set off up (after I carefully disregarded the advice of a solo skier who had just come down!), until about 50m from the top we hit the cloud base and it started to snow (like we had been told) as it was a complete white out and the rest of the climbing looked decidedly interesting we headed back down the couloir we had climbed (Max was a "little angry" with me at this point as he had seen this coming!).
I really enjoyed the ski down, I started down about 20m from the top and enjoyed some great steep (40º?) spring snow before about 2/3rds of the way down Georgia ski'ed up too and she started to side slip down (just after the snow got much more interesting, lower angle but full of boot pack and refrozen ski tracks). Max however was struggling a bit with loose boots and long skis decided to walk to the base of the couloir (which is why I was in trouble!).
After our diversion we rejoined the Crochues-Berard traverse in deteriorating weather (well blizzard!). No more photos after the base of the couloir as I got water all over the lens and then wiped crud all over trying to clean it off.
We had a quick stop at the Col du Berard for lunch where Max promptly dropped the sandwiches onto the snow and they then slid off out of sight down the hill (needless to say we didnt go after them, and Max bought the beer at the pub!). Luckily we still had a pastry each so after that we skied out into the white out and down the Berard valley (luckily we got under the clouds quickly) and had the novelty of skiing fresh snow by ourselves (normally there are people all over the Berard valley). By the time we got to the pub it was raining and the was a distinct lack of snow...
