I had in mind to do this crossing in the middle of winter to facilitate logistics but I never found the time. And as I like to make things more complicated than necessary, I waited until St Gervais closed for the season to make sure I wouldn’t be able to take the Bettex gondola which would have made my job a lot easier.
After a few slopes in Les Contamines (it’s soupy from 10:30 a.m. on the Contas side, a little later on the Hauteluce side), I leave from the TS de l’Aiguille Croche for a right-hand crossing up to the level of the Veleray ski lift (closed). From there we go up on skins to the ridge then the head of Combaz (around 200d+). Once on the ridge, just follow it up to Mont Joly, it’s straight away quite wild and nice. The ridge is wide but the slope on the Megève side is steep, so be careful. Mont Joly is very bare but it climbs without problem, I even come across an Alpine ptarmigan for the first time in my life. As my mother would say: “the gods are with us!”
I wait a bit for time to let it go and I continue my way to Mont Joly. Coming back down towards St Gervais it’s very nice, we can still enjoy the grooming from this weekend and obviously there’s no one there. I still come across a few trackers busy putting away the stakes and other mattresses. They seem very surprised to see me :)Â
Afterwards it goes back down to the Bettex without too much problem but you have to push a little because the snow is very sticky at 2:30 p.m. Once again I was able to put the Scarpa Quattro to the test from a private test visible on my profile, with 2km on the departmental road which goes back down to the valley until I was picked up by hitchhiking. The work lights were even respected! exceptional!
It’s a great outing that I recommend, alpine environment without too much difficulty and without being too far from the lifts in case of problems. I think that in the middle of winter ice ax crampons can be useful for climbing the Tête de la Combaz and Mont Joly. Today it was more of a clod of earth atmosphere on the ridges.
good skiing to all
