A mixed May

Riding the weather patterns

The weather has been very changeable these past few weeks. Which has kept a few of us keen for searching for nice ski turns, and some of us keen for finding sticky 'hero' dirt for our mountain bike tyres to grip into. We visited the Vanoise but got shut down on skiing the Grande Casse as the guardian warned us of wind slab. Still we made the most of it on the Vanoise Glacier and spring conditions.

I've been riding on setups that are actually fairly similar. My Scarpa Freedom SL ski touring boots are pretty light, but far from ski-mountaineering race boot lightness. They do the job on the up's but they are so good on the descents. My Nukeproof Mega AM is also on the heavy side, but it can get up the climbs. However once on the descent it's amazingly capable! The latest technology available in all areas of outdoor sports is simply amazing and is making everything so much more enjoyable and potentially achievable.

For Example

Doing multiple pitches of 60m abseils at 3800m to ski a couloir:

And then a few days later getting first tracks down Domes de Miage (3673m):

It was then time for this somewhere deep in Servoz's moyenne montagnes:

However there was unfortunatly two instances of chain break's that got fixed quickly both times. Though I think we appreciated the rest-bites they gave during the huge climbs!

Comments

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