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Off to Chamonix next month and keen to get a guide to spend a day off-piste. Will be snowboarding but most of the groups are ski orientated. anyone got any recommendations of guides out there? Not wanting to shell out 300E for a private guide so prefer to join a group
Assuming it’s not changed in the last few years the official guides office can be found at the Aiguille du Midi cable car (with good reason – this is the access point to Vallee Blanch) you can enquire there a day or two in advance about guides, groups & importantly upcoming weather conditions.
Look up my friend Paul at www.horsemouthsnowboarding.com
Top guy, great rider and long-term Chamonix local.
Just be aware that if you want to do the Vallée Blanche or another big glacier route, you will need a high-mountain guide, 99.9% of whom will be on skis.
Ralf Tennebrink is a Chamonix guide who snowboards, there's another guy (brit?) who is a bit of a snowboard/splitboard specialist (not Neil McNab!) but I can't remember his name!
Most of the organised guided snowboard weeks book up well in advance however you could always chance it and see if they have a cancellation.
If you definitely don't want private then the Guides Office (Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix) should be able to sort you out with a group - but it will probably be skier biased
Ralf Tenbrink, Seb Montaz and Simon Abrahams are all Chamonix based 'high mountain guides' IFMGA/UIAGM who snowboard, but they are often super busy / booked up well in advance
James Stentiford does some Chamonix based backcountry snowboard courses (and some in St Foy! 😆 ) but again they tend to fill up well in advance.
Try my old uni mate. He us not a boarder but is a fully qualified guide and will know which British Mountain Guides if any board. Tell him Dan sent you. [url= http://www.jamesthacker-mountaineering.co.uk/ ]James Thacker[/url] Also his partner is the splendid and well renowned Alison Culshaw of [url= http://www.offpiste.org.uk/ ]Off Piste Performance [/url]
...or get in touch with Lars - info@mountainpenguins.com. He's one of the only dedicated snowboard / splitboard guides down there. Qualified proper UIAGM/IFMGA guide who's been guiding in the valley for 20 odd years. He's also a really nice guy, and a friend of mine. He's never failed to find some good turns for us, even long after the snow. Say Hi from Joe if you get in touch...
...or get in touch with Lars
aye - I think Lars is in Switzerland (Zinal) with the McNab crew at the moment!
http://www.stentifordsnowboarding.co.uk
James is a lovely guy and a really f***kin good rider. He will find you some great pow turns
He's pretty quick downhill on a bike too!
thanks. Got in touch with the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix and Steveo's mate. Will try the others too. The Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix have an advanced free-ride thing that sounds good.
nothing to add really other than i am insanely jealous of these snowboard guides. Looks like THE life if you ask me.Very cool and Fantastico!
Have fun OP!
Jame Stentiford, done 2 weeks with him and you couldn't wish to meet a nicer guy.
Awesome rider and his local knowledge is fantastic, found fresh powder for us every day 🙂
Lars is the guy I was thinking of!
Stenti is in Sainte Foy for much of March... He works with a most excellent chalet company and tail-guide in the area.... 😉
don't do the Vallee Blanche though - boring as ****. Run off the mid station of the Aiguille on the front side is more fun, can't remember what it's called though.
Vallee Blanche though - boring as ****
Agreed - The 'tourist' route through the Valle Blanche isn't particularly challenging and a ski pole can help when on a snowboard if the snow is warm and sticky through the flat spots towards the end, but the views are pretty special!
Plus if anyone ever needed proof of 'climate change', then just have a look at the accelerated reduction of the Mer de glace since 1980 as you climb the steps up to the Montenvers Railway... 🙁
For a more challenging Vallee Blanche, there are a number of variants/options and/or additional classic tours that can be included to mix things up a bit ...
The long VB variant is only boring in the same way that road riding is boring, the SDW is boring, ski-touring is boring, hill walking is boring.
It's a really long, mellow route in spectacular scenery. And as digby says, there are plenty of variations cutting the corner that get progressively steeper and shorter, although they all have the same flat runout on the glacier. I've had some great runs down there, don't regret any of them, even the time we did the big long one - firm snow, enooooormous turns, laughing with mates under sunny skies.
And if your guide says the plan for tomorrow is something in the VB, what are you going to say? "No thanks, someone on the internet said it was boring as ****" ??
it's boring in the sense that there are much better OP routes in the valley - for my tastes anyway. The top is good but the long flat runout just spoils it for me, especially if the snow is slow. I've done it 3 times across a real spectrum of conditions and I've never got to the bottom thinking 'wow.'