As Brévent and Flégère opened this weekend, I couldn't resist going on a ski tour in the Aiguilles Rouges.

Sunday, Reini and Rhiannon joined me around midday and we went up the Index and the button lift. The track going up the Col de Croshues was in (even a footpath for snowboarders), but we decided to continue on to the Col de Belvedere. The snow was already soft as we skirted around the Floria bowl through the avalanche debris, a welcome exception to the usually icy morning traverse.

Skins on, we plodded up past the Chalet du Lac Blanc onto the lake and up to the Col. There was another track in up to the Col de Dards and a good number of tracks down the south facing side. From the regular appearance of the ski tracks it looked like they must have had nice snow - looking good, in case we chicken out and decide to go back the way we had come.

You should bring a rope (50-60m?) for the Col de Belvedere just in case it's not in condition to be skied from the top. Some people will want to remain on the rope a little longer (2nd rappel point about 50m down the couloir) because the rock band below is pretty intimidating.

4 people had skied in front of us and I had never seen the start in such good condition. The snow was stable and soft under our feet. Not a patch of ice or wind slab in sight. When you finally get past the rock band, the snow had transformed (it was late in the day) and was slightly crusty to ski.

We kept left to avoid the glacier on skier's-right, looking for some better snow. There were approximately 20 tracks in this part of the valley (just before it joins the actual Berard Valley), probably coming from the Glacier de Mort.

A little lower, we were in heaven! The snow was in excellent powder condition all the way down and into the Berard valley, to the plateau and into the forest. After the initial section of crusty snow, we had been a little disappointed that we might have been too late in the day and missed out on the gorgeous powder - but nah - we were up to our knees in it, whooping and hollering. We entered the forest track in magnificent early evening light and finished off our ski tour 'tobaggon-run-style' down to the Buet village.

Hardly recognising the train station, padded with meters of snow, we arrived with a couple minutes to spare before the train ride back to Flegère.

Kelly