Page 1 of 1

Col des Cristaux: Cham

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2011 7:23 pm
by BettyBoost
The Col des Cristaux is at the far end of the Argentiere basin in Chamonix, France. It's a 50 degree face and pretty flippin scary. Usually there are a ton of tracks going up the basin but today there wasn't. Chip and I broke trail the entire way! We boot-packed up the most powdery part of the face with neck deep snow because it was too sketchy crossing the huge bergshrund to get to the more firm aspect of the face. We passed a crevasse so big you could toss 10 semi trucks inside. Sketch. There were 20km per hour winds at the top which was depositing some lovely, soft pow on most of the face. We didn't get off the glacier until after sundown then we got to shred a wonderful corduroy piste through the resort in the dark. Chip made me my first, well deserved, very english, steak and ale pie. He saves them for epics. (All these photos were shot with my GoPro so the quality isn't great.)

Picture of the Cristaux I found online.
Image

Check out the vid!!!


Image

Image

At the top finally! Mont Blanc out there.
Image

Image

Image

Re: Col des Cristaux: Cham

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2011 4:28 pm
by skykilo
that's one sweet cirque.

Re: Col des Cristaux: Cham

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2011 6:53 pm
by DonJuanPakistan
Proud member of the Betty Boost fan club.