Sons of Beuafortain go exploring

High alpine singletrack into steep and deep brown pow above Albertville

This short summer's guiding work has not allowed that much time to explore and adventure, despite the barage of thirty plus degree temperatures, ice creams, coke zero's and cold beers. However early in August we got out for one of those special days.

45 minutes, only a short hike-a-bike off the Piapolay lift, where we were able to eye up the descent ahead of us, and also Albertville, down far below us.

We made our way across, and about 700 metres down to a little bit of fireroad descending to be able to link up some footpaths. We climbed some tech singletrack that lead into a short, but sweet descent full of huge roots that we had to commit too at full speed, blind of course. The best way to experience a new trail!

After this we still had about 800 metres of the 2000 metre total descent. We were all very excited by the prospect of this lower section as it is in the next hillside over from the world class Stella trail we guide every Tuesday, leading to many guests each week, claiming it to be the highlight of their holiday and up there with their best ever trail's ridden...

...And it certainly did deliver from about the third corner where we were 20cm deep into old leafs, pine needle's and light dirt. Spray constantly kicking up on our calfs. Brown pow at an all time high! Some bits were so deep you had to slow down incase there were boulders hidden underneath. Corners you could really push into and get all the grip you wanted, and straight into another.

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