Testa di Valnontey: following in the tracks of Rèmy Lecluse...

After the South Face of Grivola descent I began to examine more closely the amazing NE Face of Testa di Valnontey, a mountain unknown to most, but the one that can be seen best from Cogne: a 650m high face, completely rocky for most of the year with a long approach and descent. The sun hits the face at around 7:00am and this means it needs to be skied early, above all in late spring.

This is why Julien and I decided to start at night: we set off on foot from Valnontey at 1:45 a.m. And , 2 hours and 6 km later, we finally clipped on our split. We reached the 3510m high summit shoulder, situated directly below the top, at 8 am. Snowboarding this line that had been skied only by Remy, while his words echoed in my head, was something special... "The ambient is really airy: the start is exposed above rock bastions. To reach the main slope I traverse left for 50m: delicate, 20cm of snow plastered onto rocky slabs. It was delicate during the ascent but frankly speaking unpleasant during the descent: balance, ice axe above me as I plant the pole below, trying to delicately place my skis on the snow, above all no sliding sideways!"

I think that, despite snow conditions not being the best, we were lucky with the conditions and once again I can say: thanks Rèmy!

by Davide Capozzi

Testa di Valnontey NE Face
Difficulty: 5.3 E4. 650 mt. at 45°, long sections 50°
First descent: Rémy Lecluse il 28/04/2010
Probable first snowboard descent: Davide Capozzi e Julien Herry on 18/04/2014