back country journal
Les Courtes NNE Couloir - Chamonix
April 2006
The NNE couloir of Les Courtes was first skied in 1971 and is a popular introduction to the more extreme lines in the Chamonix valley. It is usually only ridden in spring as the entire line is glaciated and winter snow tends to stay too cold and doesn't stick so well, which means you will have nasty patches of ice or a nasty avalanche or both. In spring spring the snow tends to stick a little better, particularly after a warm day-cold night combo. Getting up there early is best, although we hiked up it until well past midday and the sun had not caused too much damage or instability. It is also one of the fantastic couloirs that are in the awesome Argentiere basin. The best part of the line consists of 400m of 48 degrees. If you pick an exact route you can find good sections of 50 degrees and slightly higher, particularly around the edges of the couloir. The entire couloir gives an 800m vertical descent with slope angle consistently at or above 45 degrees. The bottom 100 meters of so past the bergschrund flattens to 35- 40 degrees. It is amazing how a steepening from 48 to 50 degrees is quite noticeable. More so than the same increase from 28 degrees. The couloir itself runs from the summit of les Courtes (3856m)
Click the images for fll size. The first two images are taken from a guide book by Anselme Baud (see backcountry resources page). The caption in the first picture says it all. The NNE couloir is marked as route 81. I used these images I have never sat directly opposite the couloir and so don't have any direct frontal shots. Below are my pictures from an oblique angle. I took these pictures during another tour, knowing that I had les Courtes on my agenda for later in the season.
The centre of this picture shows the top section of the couloir with Grandes Jorasses north face in the background.
Access to les Courtes is via the Grand Montets cable car, riding down to the Argentiere glacier, hiking for an hour up the glacier to the couloir base/run-out area and then changing into crampons. From there you climb directly upwards for 800m of vertical ascent. It took us about 4 hours with the benefit of an already established boot pack. The climb is steep and literally straight up, like an enormous set of stairs. Good leg exercise, although it was a little hot that day under the clear skies, plus you always want to leave power in the legs for the ride down so I was taking it easy during the climb. Quite a few people had ridden it that spring and one flank was packed out and chopped. We rode the other flank which was pretty much entirely untouched. I had been up the Amethystes Glacier on the opposite side of the valley a few weeks earlier after excellent spring snowfall and from there les Courtes was looking superb. I would like to have hit it that day. See the above pictures.
Click here for the les Courtes movie page.
Click here for the les Courtes movie page.
We had a bit of an incident on the way up as we approached the bergschrund about 1/3 of the way from the bottom, just as the morning sun hit the rocks much higher above us. To our right we noticed the tell tale danger sign of snow balls thumping down over the rocks. We waited and watched. Then the waterfall of snow came pounding over the rocky drop-off. It carried on for about 10 seconds and was noisy and impressive. It was well off our line and posed no problem at all. But.... after it stopped we looked up the slope we were climbing and saw the seemingly slow-ish progression of a single point avalanche as it built up a body of snow and moved directly down the funnel towards us. We were unfortunately positioned directly in the very obvious gouged-out rut that ran the full length of the couloir, directly up the middle at gravity's 'lowest point'. We had to temporarily take this center line to cross the bergschrund, which is done by climbing up the cone of sluff debris that funneled down the chute. It is the only way to very easily get above this overhanging 3 meter high cliff of ice. The cone fills in a significant area of the bergschrund making it easy to cross.
We watched it coming down towards us and decided that we had to get out of the way. This all happened in a short period of time. The guy I was with was directly up hill of me and not knowing what to expect I hought to get out of his fall line in case he was bowled over onto me. We didnt get the chance to move much and as it appeaoced we dug in our crampon spikes whilst covering our heads. Thankfully having a board strapped to your back gives quite a bit of shield protection when you bend over forwards. The heavy snow that comes with single point avalanches always stays on the surface and does not fly up in the air like a dry powder slide. But we were directly below the bergschrund and 1 second way from coping a pounding from the small frozen waterfall as it shot out over the drop-off onto us. The first hits felt quite hard and gave me a fright. For a split second I thought it would just get heavier until I was going to be knocked off my feet. The slope we were on was getting close to 45 degrees and I did not want to go for a tumble. I was covering my head whilst being pelted with falling snow lumps. I couldn't see how much was coming down and although it was hitting us hard, luckily most of the debris was flying over the ice cliff and continuing on its way down the slope. It went on for about 20 seconds and was noisy and a little intense. I was quite relieved to still be standing in my original position once the bombardment from above slowed.
Admittedly, that type of very narrowly channeled single-point wet slide is not going to bury you unless you are in a terrain trap. However, it can knock you off your feet. Looking back it probably wasn't that bad at all. But the noise of the snow coming over the edge and hitting our backs made it sound like a big deal at the time. For the next hour the middle line of the couloir was gently flowing with snow that made a crackling noise as it ran down the rut. All was quiet on the face after that... until we started riding down and breaking away significant quantities of snow and crust, as described above. For most of the descent there was a torrent of corn snow running noisily down the guts of the couloir.
We watched it coming down towards us and decided that we had to get out of the way. This all happened in a short period of time. The guy I was with was directly up hill of me and not knowing what to expect I hought to get out of his fall line in case he was bowled over onto me. We didnt get the chance to move much and as it appeaoced we dug in our crampon spikes whilst covering our heads. Thankfully having a board strapped to your back gives quite a bit of shield protection when you bend over forwards. The heavy snow that comes with single point avalanches always stays on the surface and does not fly up in the air like a dry powder slide. But we were directly below the bergschrund and 1 second way from coping a pounding from the small frozen waterfall as it shot out over the drop-off onto us. The first hits felt quite hard and gave me a fright. For a split second I thought it would just get heavier until I was going to be knocked off my feet. The slope we were on was getting close to 45 degrees and I did not want to go for a tumble. I was covering my head whilst being pelted with falling snow lumps. I couldn't see how much was coming down and although it was hitting us hard, luckily most of the debris was flying over the ice cliff and continuing on its way down the slope. It went on for about 20 seconds and was noisy and a little intense. I was quite relieved to still be standing in my original position once the bombardment from above slowed.
Admittedly, that type of very narrowly channeled single-point wet slide is not going to bury you unless you are in a terrain trap. However, it can knock you off your feet. Looking back it probably wasn't that bad at all. But the noise of the snow coming over the edge and hitting our backs made it sound like a big deal at the time. For the next hour the middle line of the couloir was gently flowing with snow that made a crackling noise as it ran down the rut. All was quiet on the face after that... until we started riding down and breaking away significant quantities of snow and crust, as described above. For most of the descent there was a torrent of corn snow running noisily down the guts of the couloir.
Half way up looking down. You can see another team of two climbing up below us.
Getting close to the top.
A little bit of riding. That isn't me in the picture.
The descent was superb. One side of the couloir was untouched and the snow was ok quality up top. Further down it was perfect corn, almost too deep in places (for safety reasons). It was heavy but very rip-able. The deeper sections produced more sluffing than was safe so you had to interrupt your descent after several turns and wait off to the side for the sluff to run by. Alternatively you could change your fall line slightly and ride down next to the sluff river. After switching fall lines a few times the width of the sluff became pretty large so you had to pause on the edge of the rocks waiting for it to subside. You could ride through a lot of the sluffing ok and most of the time we got good long pitches from safe zone to safe zone. It was bloody fantastic. A good sustained steep face with a lot of really meaningful turns amongst a river of snow belting down the face all around you. Spring corn is noisy stuff to ride and the rushing noise of the sluff torrent was quite loud, along with the crusty surface breaking off and spinning down the face.
There were two skiers also making the climb a fair way below us. They started their ride down from about 2/3rds of the way up just after we started from near the top. MPEG footage doesn't really work so well, but it is the best I have. We were more interested in the riding than camera work anyway. I will add the movie files shortly.
-AZ-
[Mont Blanc guide for skiers, reference #81]
-AZ-
[Mont Blanc guide for skiers, reference #81]
