After the extreme weather of a few weeks ago, the ski bus linking Les Mosses and Leysin wasn’t running due to a landslide onto the route. I think it restarted yesterday or in the last couple of days. It’s a great service because it lets you leave the car on the Col des Mosses and takes you to a high road-head where you can climb onto the ridges above Leysin.
These disruptions to infrastructure have been quite big really, yesterday I had a meeting in Chamonix and it was really quite hard to get there. The direct road route is out of action due to a landslide so I needed to use the train. But, the rail link from the village is out of action due to another landslide and then the replacement bus was delayed due to snow leaving me a few seconds for my connection in Aigle. I made my connection in Martigny and was feeling relaxed that I’d be on time until the train arrived in Châtelard and it was announced it was stopping without any onward connection. In the end, another train did turn up and I was about 30 minutes later for my meeting.
So, when I noticed the local road was open with the bus running and it was a sunny day with a few hours free I decided to take the first link of the day and climb the ridge. It was pretty cold this morning, -15°C according to the car but it was clearly going to be excellent with cold, fresh powder snow and really no one about. Even then, the bus didn’t actually make it the destination, we met a construction lorry trying to remove some the gear they’d repaired the road with so I and the two other passengers decided to get out and walk!
It’s a pretty quick skin up to the ridge and I saw half a dozen other people making a similar route. Once I’d got into the sun and started climbing it was warm enough to lose a layer and it was really quite pleasant.
I will mention I was wearing a new pack today, an Ortovox Freerider 22 Avabag. It’s a removable avalanche airbag system and I intend to get the Ascent 30L bag sometime which will be better for touring. Even so, for a quick climb like this the 22L is quite good. I’ve skied with it on for a few days and it’s been just fine. But today was the first time that I actually used with the trigger unlocked and the body harness. My impressions remain really good. When I initially put it on, I’m aware of the presence of the avabag system just behind my shoulder blades and if was my summer sack I’d repack or hit it a couple of times to remove the protrusion. In practice after a few minutes I’ve forgotten and it doesn’t bother me.
In terms of size, it’s something I bought for lift-served off-piste and short tours. There are some lighter sacks (ie the Mammut Ultralight) but they lack proper structure so I think you’d feel the contents of your sack sticking in your back in the spring. And, you have to question the point of weight saving for something to use for lift-served terrain, a couple of hundred grams really won’t be too noticeable. This is borne out in practice, the Ortovox Freerider 22 Avabag is just a nice ski sack, well thought out, rugged with enough handy pockets and features. Most importantly, it’s a great fit to actually ski in. Since this is an interchangeable system, I’ll get the 30L (or wait for a new bigger one next year) for spring ski touring, that combination is about the lightest 30L avalanche sack on the market and it’s still a nice sack.
There are a few good systems around now, the Ortovox product is good because the avabag system is really light and unlike older bags, there’s no pyrotechnic trigger. In this case, it means you can pull the cylinder out and practice pulling the trigger to get confidence it’s located correctly and so on. There’s a part of the market that’s moving to electric fan systems, the attraction of these is that you can fly with them easily. That’s not an issue for me really and I suspect we’ll see two distinct segments develop for frequent flyers and backyard skiers like me.
At 22L I can get my skins or a jacket in, a flask, crampons and a few bits so it’s just fine. It’s actually probably a good idea to limit what I’m carrying as well!
Anyway, the skiing? Just great, fresh snow all the way down, perfect Febuary conditions really.
