Skiing uphill is the best thing since skiing downhill

James
Feb 5, 2023
2 min read

The world’s greatest sandwich is not a club from a 5* hotel. It is not a banh mi, a sando, a hoagie or any other regional delicacy. It is not even a Pret tuna baguette (sorry). Rather the world’s greatest sandwich is whatever you pull from your bag mid-way through a ski tour for a lunch in the sun above the clouds.

ree — A sighting of the world's greatest sandwich. Or in my case, half sandwich: the other half was distributed across the inside of my rucksack. Never trust a French sandwich bag.

That memorable lunch was the culmination of week’s off piste and touring and sealed the deal on skiing uphill. If strapping low friction planks of wood to your feet and sliding downhill on them (or your behind) is daft, then sticking glorified fur to aforementioned planks and using them to slide uphill (skinning) is even more so. But if you can do it, you are freed from relying on lifts. So you and your sandwich can venture anywhere – to more interesting and more beautiful places away from busy pistes.

ree — A Chamonix mountain rescue helicopter loitering one the massive expanse of the Mer de Glace (everyone was okay)

The ski touring week was a mix of more off piste in and around the valley, and glacier skiing with Jim the softly spoken Glaswegian guide. In addition to the ins and outs of skinning, the guide covered basic tips for glacier skiing (chiefly: don’t fall into a crevasse) against the breathtaking backdrop of the Vallée Blanche from the Italian side. Starting from Italy is not the most conventional route but it has the advantage of an excellent cafe at 3500m, complete with proper espresso. By contrast, the more famous French side has a sweaty cable car. Jim's expertise was worth it for that tip alone.

And then there was that lunch. A Friday tour, high above the clouds in Les Contamines. Two hours of skinning and then an alpine ridgeline with awe-inspiring views above the clouds and the peaks of Savoie.

It was pretty special to be able to experience that view with barely another person in sight. It was even more special to experience the ski down: 30 minutes of (mostly) soft snow, trees and views, all nowhere near a groomed piste. The best bit: I only had to be plucked out of crust once.

And then from touring to skiing with friends last week. Tom and Yulia (Tulia?) are the first of a few different groups venturing out to Chamonix this winter. Tom got his ski legs back in quicktime being forced down the Lavancher bowl in pursuit of a decent chocolat chaud: priorities, right? Meanwhile, Yulia’s first time on skis and straight into ski school: “bend ze knees” and “make ze snowplough” were the preamble to a day of playing around in the picture-perfect conditions of Les Houches. Photos could not do it justice, but I have added several at the bottom anyway.

Now with Tulia back in Blighty, the focus switches back to skinning and the pursuit of the world’s greatest sandwich. Rumour has it, it is somewhere on the Swiss-Italian border…