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Ski touring the Haute Route - Day 5

Monastère du Grand St-Bernard - Croix de Tsousse - Cabane de Valsorey

Skinning up the Croix de Tsousse
Skinning up the Croix de Tsousse

We will start off with skiing down the Valley of Death, named so after the many deaths that have occured through avalanches over the years of the Monastery. It should also be our hardest day, with the most uphill, so both reasons entice us to start of really early once again.

The ski down the valley is relatively easy, the snow being tracked down to almost a piste and hard. It does not take very long to make our way to the lift at Bourg St-Bernard. The legs are well shaken from the skiing down on the hard rilled ice, but not stirred.

Of course we do not take the lift, not because we are hard core, but because it is too early for it to be open...unfortunately. The snow is so hard that the knives barely dig in, good that the icy part is not steep. the weather is interesting, on one side a storm seems to be brewing, on the other nice sunshine, one thing for sure, the wind is howling. Rest stops do not last very long, as everybody got cold rather quickly.

Around the Col des Proz, Philippe goes up a peak to check out the descent, and decides we go around, so we need to get two turns of untracked powder, traverse a steep slope, and then walk the last little part, with Gisle breaking a pole in the process.

Mike shredding
Mike shredding

Good thing that during the many breaks, we get a chance to enjoy a momentous scenery: huge moraines from retreating glaciers have carved out a funpark for giants, with humongous halfpipes, quarterpipes and fun slopes.

When finally we made it to the top, a full refuge was waiting for us, actually overloaded refuge would more be the term, this seems to be the point where most Haute Route variations merge.

The more reasons to have a few cold beers and relax from the hard day and to get in the mood to deal with the crowds... The evening is nice and quiet as usual, except, as usual, for the unending snoring, this time exponentialed.

well deserved break before the uphill to Cabane de Valsorey
well deserved break before the uphill to Cabane de Valsorey

The uphill to the Croix de Tsousse is easy and nice, we are lucky as the wind died down and we are heading away from the storm, (more likely we stink so much that the storm is heading away from us...)

Then, we have the surprise of the trip, almost the whole ski down towards the effluent of the Tseudet glacier, is done in powder, yes, powder, we were not expecting any as the weather has been nice and warm (in the afternoons) , but this slope seems to be nicely exposed and there are few tracks.

Everybody is all smiles all the way down. It would have been great to "get back upand do it all over again", but we need to save our strenght.

This of course turned out to be a nice motivation (along with a few sips of Laphroaigh) to start off the long 800m uphill (we have done already about 1000m) to the Cabane de Valsorey.

As advertised in the description this uphill feels long, the Cabane is seen early on, but it never seems to get any closer, no matter how many switchbacks are passed, it seems to keep moving away at the same speed as we are headhing up the hill.

short break at the Croix de Tsousse
Short break at the Croix de Tsousse... what's that below??? POWDER!!!!