Report from March 5, 2025

On Tuesday I had a conundrum.

My wife is in town and I need to ski with her and there is powder out in them thar hills…

The compromise reached was that I’d run out and ski one run in the powder zone, then go backcountry skiing with her in the afternoon.

I blasted up 4 lifts at Courmayeur ski resort in the morning and dove headlong into a quick skin and a 48-minute bootpack.

I had a specific chute in mind that I was sure was plastered in Alaskan Velvet Snow (recrystallized powder).

I skinned to the base of it, put on my ascent plate, and started booting up.

About a third of the way up the chute I realized that this was not the call.

Wind and sluff had sullied the chute making the snow stiff and inflexible.

I swerved into the adjacent chute and continued up.

The snow here was just about perfect.

There was yet another chute option but I couldn’t tell if the snow was soft in there so I stuck to the chute I’d booted up.

The snow was good.

I was tired.

I skied it snow and cautious and my exhaustion really showed in my skiing.

But I’ve gotta say, savoring the chute and the recrystallized powder was very fun.

I dripped onto the apron with a smile.

I traversed back to the resort, met up with Erica, and went right back to the top.

We jumped off the back of the resort’s summit and found more good, north-facing powder.

She doesn’t love backcountry skiing and was over it quickly.

We had 2 options:

She opted for the latter and it was a great call.

The ski down to La Balme was so fun, a full adventure, and we had no idea what we were getting into.

The road down to town could have been melted out…

The road was buried in snow and the whole adventure was splendiferous!

I even found some new powder zones to come back to that no one had skied yet.

The bus comes every 30 minutes and we were right back in Courmayeur before we knew what happened.

Amazing adventure.

We were starved by the time we arrived back in Courmayeur and went straight to 4810 for apres tea.

Thanks, Italy!

Courmayeur, Italy, Report: Day #2 in the “Alaskan Velvet Snow” on Tête d l’Ane

Snow Numbers