Even ski touring with an EBike you still need skins
Did take the ebike and dog up the Col du Granon road to go ski touring the day before but half up I realised I’d forgotten to pack the skins!
As the recent strong winds had scoured the snow-pack in terms of skiing powder, my next hope was that with the recent sunny weather, there should be Spring snow on the South side of the Valley.
By then using the EMtb to ride up the Col du Granon road to the snow line, leaving the bike locked to a tree, and then ski touring to the Gardiole, would seem like a good plan, if only to suss the actual conditions out!
The one issue about going ski touring with an Ebike / EMtb is that there is a lot of gear to get together, now ski touring can have an immense faff factor attributed to it, throw in an Ebike and you nigh on double the faff potential.
Getting to the start of the Granon road involves driving up to the point where the road is closed, just above the village of Villard Laté at 1,500m.
Then it’s getting the bike out and loading the pack with the skis and other bits of associated gear, and making sure Ullr (named after the Norse god of Snow) has not already run off after a beastie in his excitement, though actually with the EBike he does not disappear too far and tends to stay in view of you on the bike.
It was only when I was around halfway up that I realised I’d forgotten my skins, so ski touring was well and truly off the menu, but I carried on as I wanted to see what the snow was like further up and where I could leave the bike, plus it became obvious that I was maybe an hour or so late in the day.
And this time of year it’s like a new learning curve trying to get your head around the potential of Spring snow, as the sun is so much lower in the sky and less strong, so what and where you would expect to transform does not always happen, of if it does it’s usually a good few hours later.
Plus with it being nigh on the shortest day of the year you have to take that into consideration and really start the descent no later than 14:00 just in case something should happen so you’ll have hopefully enough hours of daylight should you need them.
So after a failed sortie, I went up the next day 90 mins earlier, and the road up was hard pack frozen snow all the way unlike the day before when it was melting fast.
At around 2,100m just up from the new shepherd’s hut, I found a good tree to lock the bike to, which I know is being a little paranoid, as to who might be up there, let alone wanted to steal a bike!
Then it was just over 650m to the summit of the Gariole and on the way up I encountered every type of snow, so I knew what we’d be in for on the descent.
And have to say I was quite worried for Ullr as one moment he’d been on the surface then suddenly one leg would sink up to his torso as he was running along.
Anyway as ever, even though it was not one of the best skis up there, it was still a great little adventure, and ironically my FaceBook the next day showed a post from nine years ago when I was up there with the Jack Russells!
More here on ski touring with an Ebike / Emtb
And a video of the sortie.