Absence of snow this year is horrible. Basically, no snow below 1700m. At the same time the snow is not that bad at high altitude. The solution – we ski-tour and ski while high, and then fly down to the bottom of the valley! The idea is inspired by https://fr.theunlimitedliste.fr/ (but simpler – this is the first attempt for ski-tour and fly format for us).
The chosen ski route is the popular traverse from Grand Montets to le Tour via Col du Passon. And we planned to fly down somewhere from the end of the glacier du Tour, so that to evade the further descent with minimal amount of snow.
Forecast for the day was good, with some West or South-West wind at altitude.
It turned out that the idea was quite successful! In the current conditions not many skiers were going on this route, and we got a perfect untouched snow on Glacier du Tour!
The main technical problem was to find the good take off site. The wind was going in different directions on top of the flat glacier, mostly giving us slight back wind. Olesya managed to catch a long enough window to start from the edge of the glacier. I was not that lucky, but after descending additional 50 meters down I’ve found a steeper place quite nicely protected from the wind.
Landing is very comfortable — the beginner ski lift at le Tour (Vormaines) is closed, but still covered with snow, offering large and easy landing field.
In short, an excellent combo!
Track
Red parts are ski-touring climbs, green are ski descents. Blue – paraglider flight to le Tour.