Many of my clients ask me about wich backpack they should choose for their next trip to the Alps. Many possible answer to this question:
Which activity ?
each backpack is designed for a specific activity.
A ski mountaineering pack should have side velcros and loops to carry skis and board whereas you will be happy to use ice axes loops for a day ice climbing. Side-access or double-zipper designs give you the option of retrieving gear from various parts of the pack without having to dig around or remove items...
Before you choose your pack, make sure it is designed for the activity you're planning.
For how long ?
For mountaineering ascents in the Alps you will certainly not need more than a 45 litres capacity. The longer you're out on the mountain, the more space you'll need for gear. You can use these figures as a basis for determining your capacity needs:
- Daymountaineering or single-night trips—30 to 40 litres. ( One day off piste skiing, ski touring, ice climbing, heliskiing)
- 2- to 3-day trips—40 to 45 litres ( summer ascents with a night in mountain huts, or short ski tours)
- Extended trips (up to 6 days)—45 to 50 litres ( ski or climbing trips in autonomy, multi days ski tours)
Try your backpack in the shop loaded and make sure you carry most of the weight onto your hips and not on your shoulders !
Avalanche transceivers are a class of radio transceivers specialized to the purpose of finding people or equipment buried under avalanches..When turned on, the beepers transmits a signal about once per second. If someone is buried, everyone else in the party turns their transceivers on reception mode, and they can hear the signal from the buried victim's beeper.
Which transceiver should I buy?
You will firstly have to make a choice between analog and digital devices:
Analog
The original avalanche transceiver transmittes the pulsed signal as an audible tone to the user. The tone gets louder when the user is closer to the transmitting beacon.
Digital
Digital transceivers take the strength of the signal and the emitted dipole flux pattern and compute distance and direction to the buried transceiver.
If you are an occasionnal off piste rider, I would personnaly highly recommend you a digital one. My personnal choice goes to the Barryvox Pulse that I have used since last year.
8 Usefull tips:
- Take off batteries between two seasons and change them all for new one before the first ride of the winter
- Everyone in the party wears them under their jackets.
- Organise a group transceiver brief to check all batteries are full and beepers on before you start the day.
- Doesn't matter wich beeper you buy: just practice, practice, practice ! I often compare a search to a foreign language, if you do not practice, you simply loose it !
- Mr transceiver always wants to ride with its 2 friends: Miss shovel and Mr probe. Never separate them !
- Never ride off piste without your kit, whatever the conditions are.
- Take a radio or phone and enter the local emergency numbers.
- Check the local avalanche forecast before you leave.
Chamonix valley is well known for its challenging glacier off piste lines. Some of my regular clients in search of new skiing horizons had a really good time ski touring in the unknow swiss resort of Les Marécottes.
You cannot drive to Les Marécottes, wich is why it is so quite and unknow from the Chamonix ski bumbs. Drive to the swiss border above Vallorcine and park in the pittoresque swiss village of Finhaut. From there are regular alpin trains leading you to Les Marécottes in 10 minutes.
Contact me on that blog if you wish some more informations about the off piste lines.
At last we can enjoy via ferrata in Chamonix ! A via ferrata, italian for "iron road"is a mountain route which is equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders, and bridges.
Quite good fun as a last easy day on one of my alpine courses or just as a first experience in a vertical dimension.
Watch the recently built via ferrata in Plateau d'Assy , 20 mn driving from Chamonix-Mont Blanc.
A moulin or glacier mill is a narrow, tubular chute.Moulins can go all the way to the bottom of the glacier and can be hundreds of meters deep.
Moulins are a part of a glacier's internal "plumbing" system, to carry meltwater out to wherever it may go.
We abseiled down on of them on the Mer de Glace the other day with Jesper as the running water system is now stopped by freezing temperatures: just an amazing experience in the heart of the longest glacier of the french Alps.
Watch the video here. Contact me for more details !
20 minutes from Chamonix is the peacefull Thermal parc in Le fayet. In the back of the Thermes building is a new born dry tooling spot. About 20 routes between 15 and 30 meters. From F 6B to 7C grade.
What is Dry Tooling ? Dry-tooling is climbing on non-icy rock but using ice climbing equipment such as crampons and ice axes.
Dynamic, burly moves, wild falls and unpredictable blow offs...dry tooling is controversial among many climbers !
Some favor it as a new and exciting kind of climbing, while others dislike it for its non traditional methods... Just try it yourself and make your own opinion !
Watch the related video from our last session with Peter in Le Fayet.
