My Cross country skis are proper old schoolOriginally Posted by wycoller
steel edge skis from Rossignol, 75mm 3 pin bindings. leather boots with vibram sole.
Now for the Epic!!
This probably deserves it's own thread.....
Had four hours out today set off to climb Margary hill up cut gate. tried this on foot on Saturday, and had to turn back due to deep snow. once above the tree line it was apparent that there was at least another foot with deeper drifts. Progress was good on consolidated snow but hopeless in the deep fresh stuff
Once on Cut gate its self the density of snow increase with thick windpack/wind slab on the lee side. Made good progress but visibilty drastically reduced to zero due to cloud and wind blown snow. Moved up on to the top but ended up wallowing in 2-3 foot snow over deep heather constantly breaking through I dropped back to the lee side where a brief gap showed that the wind had created a surprisingly big cornice!!!! just 3-4 metres to my right.
I continues on giving the edge a healthy gap. There was no one around and I suspect there hadn't been any one up here for at least a week.
Another 200 m along the edge and the conditions were terrible. so I stopped took off my skis had a drink and decided to head back. Just then the wind stopped and the vis picked up and I notice I was only 2 m from the edge.
The next moment I was falling!!! then face down in the snow and then rolling. Yep the cornice had broken taking me with itI'd only dropped 15 ft and then rolled 25ft but to say I was a bit shook up. No injuries at all but I was a bit worried about the chance of more collapse. I made my way back up to the fracture line apprx 3-4 ft thick. beneath this there was at least 6-10 foot of vertical snow.
I guess not many can say they've fallen through a cornice in the peak!!!
Any way I managed to tunnel, plough, climb my way back up but it took best part on an hour up in white out conditions, Took some pics and a movie shot as I had my camera around my neck at the time. The bits you can see(as snow went every where) are pretty dramatic. I'll try and post some soon
Decided to head back direct and had to fight through deep drifts over deep heather. In 2-3 days times after a slight thaw and a good freeze the skiing will be amazing. This snow will not dissapear overnight, there just so much of it. One drift was at least 13-15ft deep and had produced a double cornice.
Awesome stuff but glad to be back at the car having seen no one all day. quite an humbling experience I can tell you.
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