Road trip - Day 5. Couloir de Cosmiques :-)

So today we did a 3000m run. thats one of the longest lift served ski descents possible anywhere in the world. :-) From the top of Aiguille du Midi telepherique, we went a little down the arete that would take you to the Valley Blanche, but instead we dropped down on the south side and hit hard skiers right, around the back of the Midi, then a small hike up, to get to the top of Cosmiques couloir. There we had a 50m ish rappel into the couloir. The run was 50 odd degrees at the top and icy/windy effected, so i sideslipped the first few metres. After that it got powdery. My feet were hurting a hell of a lot and at 4000m it is a little cold, so that combined with i a little bit of a grip factor, meant that i did not actually enjoy the ski as much as i should. But hey, the view was totally epic, and it was the longest, and maybe the hardest, run i ever did, with some nice turns once we got going.

At the base of the couloir we hopped the bergschrund and got onto the Boisons glacier. From there it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle getting down through seracs and thankfully very snow filled crevasses all the way down to chamonix. We took off our skis at the Midi base station, where i was a broken man. The others went and did another big run, i went off to find the boot fitting shop....

The photos you might notice are a little sparse over the most important section. cant really be helped, under the circumstances. :-)

Lastly, but certainly not leastly, hats off to Ben and his contact (nice-again -younger-than-me South African aspirant guide who's name i have rudefully lost in the 3 weeks since this run), without whom i obviously would not have been attempting this route.

Cable-Car

goes up there...

just dropped off the Arete on south side, and now heading skiers right, around the south side of Ag.d.M.

Just rapelled into the couloir..

Kurt lickin his lips!

After looking at this! :-)

This one is taken looking back up to the rapell we just came off. See skier (Ville) at finish of rapell.

Looking across from the same spot. Can just make out Chamonix and Les Houches down there....

Almost down, ikke. Looking down the Boisson glacier. We about halfway down now, Couloir long gone...out of the frying pan, and into..those seracs :-). My feet by the way, at this point, were completely numb. As a few of you will know, 'ts not all that easy skiing on numb feet like, but it can be done :-)

Old car for the pre-A.d.M telephrique, hidden in the woods on the way down.

Taken on my way to the ski boot shop- only one person knows the significance of this photo! :-).

I always wanted to ski off the A.g.d.M down the north side, but never really thought i would. Now, i did.

Ski y later.