Sat looking out of the window (15th May!) watching the snow beat down and settle on the cars made us think back to the good times we have had on our splitboard courses this winter season just gone (well almost). We ran 5 weeks during 2015 and each one was booked out with a great mix of returning riders and first timers with us
Christmas and New Year weeks are traditionally very popular with skiers. French, English, German, Dutch, Belgian, Swiss etc etc flock to the Alps to spend the holidays up the mountain. However, in 2014 there wasn’t too much snow around on these weeks – bucking past trends. “No biggie” we thought. There is plenty of time for it to snow before our first week starts on 17th Jan. The first week of Jan rolled into the second and still it hadn’t come. Yes we had had some of course but not the mother-load. It was starting to look a bit grim. The pistes were open (a bit icy and crowded though for sure) but that’s not really what you need to run a successful splitboard course.
With almost too perfect timing we got a substantial dump on the 17th….
We spent the first three days hunting out the best and most easily accessible powder in and around the resort sidecountry – relatively short walks for some great turns. On the Thursday we had intended to head towards Samoens and a mountain refuge for the night. However, we figured that it may be a lot of walking for little return on the descents given the snow coverage. After a chat with Paulo our UIAGM guide the guys opted to spend the time riding some of the steeper chutes in the area instead. It was a great option as we scored untracked fresh and faceshots. The last day was spent splitting up a steep face in La vallée de la Manche. Halfway through the walk a thick fog descended which made things pretty interesting going up. However, we topped out into brilliant bluebird and quickly made the transition to ride mode for a big old powder laden ride home.
In fact the guys got to ride powder on each day of the splitboard course here with us which, considering how things were looking on the Friday previous, was very good indeed!