Guys Climbing & Skiing Blog: Dômes de Miage Ski

The inversion from the Conscrits Hut 2600m (click to enlarge this one! nice work again Chris. Awesome)

25th-Courmayeur . Went to ski the long awaited powder... unfortunately they hadn't had as much as our side and the Youla lift was shut! Still, had fun skiing steep lines through the trees and had pizza.
26th-Work
27th- Did Nothing! / Jobs around the house.
28th-Work
29th-Work
30th- Domes de Miage Ski Day 1: Les Contamines to Conscrits Refuge
Chris, Plum and I have waited ages to go do the Domes de Miage.... it is a relatively easy mountain to climb but it has a long approach as it is a bit off the 'Chamonix beaten track'. It starts in Les Contamines, about 30 minutes drive away, from here you skin up to te Tre-La-Tete Refuge (we had a picnic, some have lunch here) then on and over the Mauvais Pas to the Tre-La-Tete Glacier and on to the Conscrits hut - Guidebook time about 6-7 hours ski trek! This is why I have never bothered in the past with the Chamonix lifts making everything so accessible and didnt fancy the summer climb...so why not do it on ski!

There was an inversion in the valley, making the clouds hang down and giving no visibiity below 2500m. Unfortunately for us, Les Contamines was at 1200m and the hut was at 2600m! A big day with no visibility. We made our way with little difficulty to the first refuge, then from there thigns got a bit tricky. Routefinding was quite tough and we eventually made it down to the snout of the glacier. Unable to see.... we roped together and decided to get the GPS out, we decided this was probably the easiest way for us to keep a good course and avoid the crevasses and serac barriers of the glacier. Up and down we went, across...side to side... evenutally things started to add up. We located ourselves to be directly south of the hut, so started to climb the final 200m up an easy gully and snow slopes until we popped out of the cloud, 200m (horizontally) from the hut! Perfect! As the sole party at the hut (at 6pm when we arrived) the warden asked 'so, where did you come from?!' seeing our tracks coming from the not-so normal hut approach!

Conscrits hut is great, nice food and it was really quiet. Room to ourselves. Weather looked good for day 2

The hut is up here somewhere!

An hour or so on the glacier....feeling our way around!

31st-Domes de Miage Ski Day 2: Conscrits Refuge to Domes de Miage central summit and ski descent to Les Contamines.

With a 5.30am breakfast we got our kit together, stuffed down some average coffee and cereal (as always) and headed out towards the Col de Domes, the lowest point along the summits traverse. Up and up we went, feeling pretty good, excited about the very cool ski run that would be at the end of all of this uphill! We stayed high, a bit high and missed the main track to the col, not to worry.... as we had gained so much height it made sense for us to go straight for the col of the central Dome at about 3650m. Up we went! The bonus of this route choice was that we could actually ski right onto the summit! Great feeling. After a wee break and a good look over the western side of Mt Blanc we strapped ski's back on and just leaped down the side of the mountain.. skiing straight down towards the glacier. Fantastic feeling, skiing from the top of a big mountain, knowing that in a couple of hours you will be back at the car! After all that hard work!

Good times! We considered the other descent which is supposed to be one of the finest in the area, down to Les Contamines via the Armancette Glacier. Maybe next time eh, I think we would also traverse all of the domes...why not.

The ski was fun, fast descent past the Conscrits hut and then down through a gorge and then some bushwacking through to Les Contamines.