Alagna/Grosseney, Italy, Jan. 24, 2018

Tony Crocker

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After the massive storm the week before we flew to Geneva, we booked our first skiing in the Monterosa region of Italy.
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But then a storm was predicted for our first weekend, so we moved the Monterosa dates to Jan. 22-24 and went to the Dolomites first.

The nicest weather days, calm with spotless clear skies, were Tuesday and Wednesday, our last day in the Dolomites and first day in Monterosa. We stayed in Grosseney for its location in the central of the three valleys linked in the Monterosa ski network. The western valley Champoluc has the biggest lodging base and the best piste skiing. Alagna has the off piste reputation and is in fact the first of these areas Liz or I knew about, in my case because Extremely Canadian ran a trip there a few times.

So with a short visit we hired Stefan of Guide Alpine di Grosseney http://www.guidemonterosa.info/index_e.asp for our first day and headed for Alagna. Alagna as one can see from the map has a minimalist piste network of basically one per lift, though the vertical is huge, from 4,000 – 9,740 feet. We started with a long but gravity traverse overlooking a large summer refugio.
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Our objective was this shaded bowl skier’s right of the V3 piste.
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From the map you can see that there is a lot of sunny exposure in the Monterosa, but this bowl was completely shaded by the towering walls above.

The other issue up high was the extensive wind hammering over the prior weekend. There was a lot of sastrugi but Stefan knew where to traverse across it to smooth lines of windbuff. We worked several of these lines until the good snow ran out. This was due to the last storm raining to 6,500 feet. So we had to exit through some ugly rain crust, reaching the piste at 5,700.
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We finally reached the town of Alagna at 4,000.
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Alagna is the most rustic and least touristy of the 3 valleys. However most of the 30 mile long Grosseney Valley below the ski lifts is quite similar, with a lot of stone buildings hundreds of years old.

We rode 3 lifts up to 9,700 and took a short step-up to La Balma. Stefan and Liz skiing the top wide couloir entry:
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The wrap around mountains sheltered La Balma from the wind more than other areas we skied.
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This was 2,000 vertical of smooth windbuff.

The exit traverse was long with several step-up sections though.
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Ahead you can see the saddle we must cross over.
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You can see lift towers coming up from lower left to upper right. That lift has been gone for a decade and there is only vague talk about replacing it. It would allow fall line skiing to its loading station around 7,000 feet. The La Balma drainage goes all the way down to Alagna, but Stefan knew not to do that with that rain line at 6,500.

In the picture above is also the decommissioned original Indren tram station. It has been replaced by a better located new one that we rode for our next two runs.

From the Col d’Olen dividing the Alagna and Grosseney drainages, here’s the view down the gondola coming up from Grosseney.
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The Indren tram rises to 10,700 feet. All of its skiing is off-piste and you are required to use your transceiver to open the exit door. The upper part of Indren is wide open and mellow, easy to find the smooth lines. This is south facing but it was all winter snow as it’s January and not too steep.
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View back up of that section:
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Note that below the highest peak in view there is some glacial ice.

We next skied the Canale Grande couloir.
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This was steeper and SE facing so in ideal corn mode at 2:30PM.

View back up to Canale Grande:
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There’s a long but scenic exit trail back to the Gabiet gondola mid-station.
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Liz was fatigued and so did the last run on piste. Stefan and I returned to Indren to ski the narrower Canale dell’Aquila. The upper approach had smooth windbuff.
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Soon the entry comes into view.
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Stefan took pictures of me skiing Canale dell’Aquila.
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At 3:30PM this couloir was in the shade and a bit crunchy.

In this view from the gondola at 10:30AM both couloirs are in full sun.
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Canale Grande is at left and Canale dell’Aquila at right. From the pictures of me skiing you can tell the latter run is not as narrow as it looks from afar. Liz enjoyed it the next morning when she was better rested.

We regrouped at Gabiet and skied down to the Ellex Hotel where we were staying. Vertical was 17,800, some of it quite hard earned.

James tends to avoid the massive Euro complexes like the Dolomites where we had spent the prior 4 days. But the Monterosa is his kind of place.
 
Looks great and I'm taking notes. =D> to Tony for continuing to earn the Retirement Iron Man award. I can only hope to have that level of endurance.

Tony Crocker":2l215i2h said:
James tends to avoid the massive Euro complexes like the Dolomites.
Not completely true. Six weeks ago, I spent two days at Arosa/Lenzerheide with 225kms, which puts it in the "large" (although not "massive") category for the Alps, and I've spent time at the Portes du Soleil, Ischgl, Megève, Saalbach, Kitzbühel, the Ski Welt, and the Arlberg. That said; with Monterosa as Exhibit A (listed as 132km total), Tony can vouch for how the piste-length measurement system is often inadequate.
 
Piste length measurement is rather useless IMHO as it’s a horizontal measure while skiing is a vertical sport.

It’s almost impossible to figure out topography from a Euro trail map. You need to see it in person. I’m getting a better idea understanding of James’ desired off piste: moderate pitch, visible from lifts, often between pistes to avoid terrain traps. Champoluc is fairly good on that regard. Warth and Cervinia are excellent by my experience.

Zermatt’s 3,400 vertical Hohtalli tram is the gold standard, but Fraser says it’s closed for quite awhile due to the excessive snow this season and perhaps avalanche exposure. We are now in Cervinia for two days and have the Italy only lift tickets due to those closures in Zermatt.
 
From TR above:
The Indren tram rises to 10,700 feet. All of its skiing is off-piste and you are required to use your transceiver to open the exit door.
I would assume thus policy has not changed since 2018 unless you can determine otherwise.
 
I would assume thus policy has not changed since 2018 unless you can determine otherwise.

Same in 2023.

I don't think Courmayeur has this policy off its Arp Cable Car. Forget what other lifts might require a beacon. Aguille du Midi? However, I always ski with my transceiver in the Alps.
 
Same in 2023.

I don't think Courmayeur has this policy off its Arp Cable Car. Forget what other lifts might require a beacon. Aguille du Midi? However, I always ski with my transceiver in the Alps.
I’m going to have to get one.
@jamesdeluxe do you ski with one when you’re just getting at the low angle side of the pistes stuff?
 
@jamesdeluxe do you ski with one when you’re just getting at the low angle side of the pistes stuff?
No. My terrain choices stay away from avy zones; also, I ski solo more than 90% of the time so having a transceiver without someone nearby who's equipped with one to receive my signal wouldn't be very effective.
 
I’m going to have to get one.

Avalanche transceivers are not cheap pieces of equipment. I have an idiot-proof BCA Tracker 3 (one of the simplest/high ease-of-use beacons). You can find this one on sale/discount since they introduced Tracker 4. It also looks like they have a simplified model in the Tracker S. Link

I basically use it when skiing side-country in the USA/Canada (i.e., Telluride's Bear Creek/Gold Hill, Jackson Hole's Rock Springs/Four Pines, Teton Pass, Big Sky, Bridger, Alpental, Crystal, Lake Louise, Sunshine, etc.) and most days in Europe. Even relatively mild and/or tree-lines areas can have some exposed alpine areas - like Megeve, Morzine/Les Gets, Cervinia, etc.

Generally, always have a shovel too. Snow that slides becomes heavy and compacted. A probe - that's a major slide if someone is buried that deeply. One of the few times I used my shovel was an in-bounds small slide at Powder Mountain where a boarder got partially buried/stuck.
 
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I was looking at the Monterosa webcams. Conditions look much better than when I was there last year.

Assume the upper open zones in Champoluc and its Larch forests will be good, the upper lifts of Gressoney, the Indren cable car and upper portions of Alagna.

Like Zermatt, Monterosa can be a highly rocky place, so you must choose off-piste/freeride areas wisely, considering the subsurface.
 
Liz and I wear transceivers most days in Europe aside from those 90+% on piste days during prolonged dry spells like the latter part of last year;s trip and the early part of the spring 2022 trip. On the more powder abundant trips in 2018 and 2019 we were wearing them all the time.

In North America transceivers are required at Jackson's Rock Springs, Big Sky's Big Couloir and North Snowfields, Bridger's Ridge and Schlasman's lift and Sunshine's Delirium Dive.
 
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