Fay Manners and Tom Lafaille ski big new line on Aiguille d’Argentiere

On February 17th Tom Lafaille and I set off from Grandes Montets car park at around 3:30am. We wanted to start from the valley with no lifts, resulting in nearly 3,000m height gain in total. To start the day we did 2,700m to get to the top of Aiguille d’Argentiere, and we reached the west summit at around 10:30am having ascended via the Glacier di Milieu.

From the summit we took a rocky line, skiing exposed terrain above cliffs from the ridge to below where we could find enough snow to ski a logical line. We had to do a mix of abseiling, down climbing and steep skiing. The first section took us a long time as it was quite complex terrain, navigating through patches of snow, above and underneath cliffs and small rocky sections. It felt very committing to be skiing in such exposed terrain but the snow was smooth and we had timed it well to be skiing the top east-facing ridge in the sun when the snow had softened up.

In the middle section we skied a snowy shoulder. The snow had softened up perfectly at this point and although it felt really exposed and remote, the skiing was spectacular. We could see all the people below ski touring up the Glacier di Milieu looking up at us, wondering how we got up there and what we were doing!

The lower two couloirs were the most spectacular meters of skiing. The first couloir was quite narrow and had some quite technical sections where we really needed to control our jump turns. The second couloir was wider and we could ski it with more linked up turns and it felt less intense.

We completed the entire route in a very pure alpine style. Without the use of lifts and, furthermore, we left no trace. We did use a 30m rope for abseiling a few steep rocky sections, but we used a Dufour knot which meant we didn’t need to leave any tat or anchors behind. Where impossible to keep our skis on, we down-climbed or traversed across cracks in the rock instead of abseiling. The whole outing felt like a classic mountaineering experience, more like ski touring in the remote high mountains than ski touring in the heavily travelled Chamonix Mont Blanc.

Thankfully we timed the descent really well, as we needed conditions similar to those found in spring rather than cold winter powder snow conditions. We wanted to ski the top part shortly after the sun hit it, therefore we waited on the summit for a little while for the snow to soften. On the descent the snow was just the right temperature to hold an edge on sketchy traverses but it was also forgiving enough that the skiing was fun and playful”

The lower couloirs came into the sun later which was perfect as they softened up just as we arrived. We wouldn’t have wanted to have skied them any earlier than we did. It was a long day as we didn’t finish until 5 pm back in the carpark, making it a 14-hour day in total. But with the navigation of the line, trying to find our way “onsight” from the top, also with multiple transitions (skis on the back pack then skis back on to ski, crampons for hiking up or for making short traverses where it wasn’t possible to ski etc) the timing worked well as we weren’t too fast which meant we could ski all the sections in the softer snow, and nothing was too icy or hard packed. I am proud to have opened this new ski descent above Chamonix and we have called the line Stratonspherique.

by Fay Manners

 

 

 

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