This is the photo diary of a ski mountaineering trip to the Gran Paradiso area of Italy. We all met in a hotel next to the Flegere ski lift near Chamonix.
Jon de Montjoye, Hilary Sharp (Jon’s wife)
Dave Butcher, Lovejoy, Alan Green and Eric
If you would like a memento of your trip or a gift, all of the black and white images are available as fine art black and white prints. Most of them were taken with a Mamiya 6 camera on Ilford 120 film and are available as high quality hand made darkroom prints in a range of sizes from 40x30cm to 70x70cm (size refers to mount and frame, image is a few cm smaller).
They all have a 6 digit number at the end of the title to uniquely identify the negative to help ordering – just type this number into the search box in the World Landscapes Gallery and it will show the image and ordering information. Not all images are included so if you can’t find the ones that interest you just send me an email using the Contact page form on this website and we’ll sort out the details between us.
Hilary drove us around from Les Lanchers Hotel in Les Praz near Chamonix to the Val di Rhemes with clear blue skies above, and it was hot. Just north of Pellaud (1800m) the road was blocked by snow so we parked up, loaded up with rucsacs and skinned up the road. At the hamlet of Thumel we left the road and followed the steep track to the chapel. The snow was patchy so we took our skis off a couple of times and carried them. There was a steep snow section as we traversed up to the hut. It was getting cooler but still sunny. We reached the hut after about 2.5h, arriving mid-afternoon. There was running water at the hut in the afternoon but not in the morning. The toilets were a touch basic, just a hole in the floor and all waste ran into the stream a few metres away, toilet paper was put in a bag at head height. Dinner was at 6.30pm. It was cold in the dorm so needed to wear all my clothes and 2 blankets folded double to keep warm.
Hut: Benevolo
Breakfast was at 6am for a 7am start. We contoured around steep icy slopes into Coire St Helena, past Truc st Elena below the steep cliffs of Granta Parey. Then it was up to the glacier on easy slopes to reach the top of the Punta Calabre (3445m) at 11.30am. There was a cold wind at the top and a clear blue sky as we left the top at 12pm on hard snow and then powder and spring snow. Our route took us down a gully which we side slipped, Jon nicknamed it ‘Butcher Couloir’, I didn’t know he was giving points for style! We could have skied it but the steep cliffs at the bottom just below our exit would have made any mistake ‘costly’. It was then a good run down to the hut reaching it at 1.10pm.
Peak: Punta Calabre(3445m)
Hut: Benevolo
We were up at 5.50am and having the usual hut breakfast of bread, jam and tea at 6am. We left the hut at 6.50am and started a steep climb and icy traverse. Eric soon realised that he had forgotten his ice axe, it was still at the hut. It was too late to go back for it so Jon changed the plan from Granta Parey to Becca La Traversiere. We passed a dead Ibex on the steep slopes and it was quite a hard ski up to the first col, a rocky ridge. We continued on the traverse past huge crevasses. We were buzzed by a small plane a few times and in the end it landed on the glacier a half mile from us. We roped up at the foot of the last steep section and used ski poles and crampons to get up the deep snow and along the ridge to the top of Becca La Traversiere at 11.20am. I took a few photos from the top and then returned to the skis by 12pm. It was sunny with blue skies and mostly no wind. It was a good ski down and at the frozen Lago di Goletta we put skins on and went back up to a rock ridge, took the skins off and had an excellent ski down on perfect spring snow to reach the hut at 1.30pm. We lazed about in the sunshine and watched Lovejoy make a fool of himself practising his kick turns in front of the whole hut. He chose a slope immediately outside the hut with an overhanging cornice at the top and kept kicking the tip of his ski into the cornice where it stuck! We gave him a standing ovation as he finished and came in, having entertained the entire hut for a good 30 minutes. Brian Hall also had a group at the hut and they had a difficult day as one of the clients broke a binding doing the same route as we did. It took them a couple of hours longer to complete the day.
Peak: Becca La Traversiere (3337m)
Hut: Benevolo
Once again we were up at 5.50am for a 6am breakfast and a 6.50am start. Hilary was impatient and started without us. We skinned up to the col and Hilary joined us before the final slope to the col NW of Punta Gran Vaudala. It was a good ski down the Vallone di Gran Vaudala. The last few hundred metres to the Val di Rhemes down a very steep mogulled couloir of mixed ground. It was a difficult long ski out. There was a lot of ski skating and it was very tiring. We piled into the van and Hilary drove us a short distance to Bruil where we briefly stopped for food and drink. Then it was back in the van and around to the ValSavarenche where we parked a couple of miles north of Le Pont. We started up at 1.45pm carrying our skis on our sacs up a series of zig-zags through forest on a good footpath. Jon was ill with dizziness and diarrhoea so Hilary led us up to the Chabod Hut while Jon took his time behind us. We reached the hut at 4.45pm and it was much cooler here and clouding over. There were only 16 in the Chabod hut, most go via the Victor Emmanuelle Hut for an easier route. It was quite a new hut with lots of wood everywhere but no running water.
Hut: Chabod
We were up at 5.20am for breakfast at 5.30am and on skis at 6.25am. It was clear, cold and pitch black. We needed head torches to see anything. By 7am it was light enough not to need torches as we skinned up and across a heavily crevassed glacier under huge ice walls with lots of snow bridges to cross, but all in the shade so they were solid. There was a steep icy section to get out of the corrie onto the main motorway trail from the Victor Emmanuelle hut at 9.30am. After this it was a gentle slope to start with from here before we reached a steep icy section and my breathing was heavy as we neared the 4000m mark. Then the slope eased again and we skinned up the final section, crossed the bergschrund and made the steep traverse to the rocky ridge section near the summit. Here the skis had to come off and we roped up for the final section. We each used a couple of carabiners to clip into a cable with our boot toes on a narrow ledge so that we could edge across with the clouds below us. Another group ahead of us was in trouble as one of them refused to do the traverse. The Italian guide they were with seemed not to care so Jon roped them up and talked them across. Once across we scrambled up the last few rocks to the top with a Madonna statue at about 11.30am, the clouds were below and to the south. I took lots of photos and then we returned to the skis and started skiing down at 12.15pm, there was now perfect snow most of the way down. We reached the Victor Emmanuelle hut at about 1pm and it was hot so we sat outside and had some drinks. After a chat we decided to continue to the valley instead of staying here. Our next day’s peak was in poor condition and we feared it would be an anticlimax after the Gran Paradiso as it was soft snow now and thin at the bottom so we decided to see if heliskiing was an option. We reached the road at Le Pont about 4pm where Hilary left us to go home to Vallorcine. Jon drove us around to Valgrisenche and the Hotel Albergo Perret where Jon was welcomed like one of the family. The rooms were very comfortable and we were well looked after.
Peak: Grand Paradiso (4061m)
Hut: Hotel Albergo Perret
It was a leisurely start then down to the helipad for lift off at 9.15am. I was next to the window to try and take some photos from the helicopter but the windows were not that clear. We were dropped off near the top of Testa del Rutor at 9.25am and I climbed up to the ridge below the summit for a better view and photos before we started down. The snow was great pretty much all the way down. Only the lower slope was poor and we had to watch out for low hanging tree branches to reach the road at about 11 am. Jon called the helicopter company with his radio and they came and picked us up. They ferried us back to the hotel where we showered, changed and Jon took us back to Les Lanchers Hotel in Les Praz.
Trip Peaks: Punta Calabre(3445m), Becca La Traversiere (3337m), Grand Paradiso (4061m)
Mamiya 6 MF + Ilford FP4+ 220 film
Nikon AF3 + Fuji 35mm Colour slide/transparency film
Kastle Tour Randonee 180cm skis
Silvretta 404 Touring bindings and Harscheissen (ski crampons)
Kastle Collapsible Ski Poles
Pomoco climbing skins for skis (orange colour on left of photo)
Dynafit Tour Lite 2 boots
Mountain Technology 50cm ice axe
Camp Arctic 10 step-in crampons
Outside Rock 40 litre rucsack (weighed about 1kg)
All images are copyright © Dr. Dave Butcher and may not be downloaded, copied or reproduced in any way without prior written permission. All rights are reserved.
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