Colle del Grand Etret Orientale 3120m

After the great day summiting Gran Paradiso, the plan for day 3 was to summit La Tresenta 3609m, depending on weather conditions, and then to ski back down to Pont.

The night at rifugio Vittorio Emanuele II was ok, we had a room for ourselves, which was great, yet I didn't sleep that well. After having breakfast we left the hut at 6.30am in the dark, the sky was quite densly overcast, which meant the snow had not frozen overnight and would have been anything but ideal...

The route to La Tresenta is logical and from the hut it goes SE straight towards the summit. Once on the Moncorve Glacier the normal route enters a wide glacier basin N of the summit and goes to the col of Gran Paradiso first before traversing back into the NW face. We instead decided to shortcut and directly point towards the NW face so we stayed rather to the right hand and found a passage between p. 3204 and p. 3363m by traversing a rather steep (45 degree) frozen slope; after this spurt of concentration we stopped for a break at ca. 3300m. I was already savouring going up the remaining 300Hm in the 40degree NW face... we then briefly discussed and as the weather was getting worse and the views from the summit were zero anyway... I agreed rather quickly with Marc that we would not summit and do something else...

So we skied down in now bad visibility in very bad snow conditions (Bruchharsch), and traversed below the Ciarforon N face heading West to reach p. 2828m, where we turned SW and trying to loose as little altitude as possible, we entered the Valon, which we reached at its bottom at 2700m. This has been one of my worst traverses ever and I was quite happy to put back on my skins... From p. 2700 at the bottom of Valon we found a good trace and maintaining our right headed up to the Colle del Grand Etret Orientale (I think, as there are three cols all roughly the same height). 200hm were in steep 40degree slopes but due to the good trace no Harscheisen were needed and I found the ascent quite pleasant.

At the col we enjoyed the cloudy, windy and athmospheric ambience a lot. I was very curious as usual when approaching a col, and the other side looked very steep, rocky and wild. After a short break we started our descent. Although trying to ski down the best possible NE exposition, snow conditions were still very difficult, although slightly better than the former traverse. Too warm and no freezing at night are not ideal... visibility was now better.

Below 2400m the ambiance was beautyful and solitary but snow was extremely wet and heavy and as slopes became almost horizontal, we sometimes broke into holes underneat...so we pushed quite a bit, traversed large avalanche cones trying to get out rapidly from underneat the dangerous E exposed faces...these are a ticking death traps.... We reached Pont at 11.30am and promptly son after the 1st wet avalanche started discharging into the Valon with much noise just veery close to where our trace had been... perfect timing... 

Although we missed La Tresenta we still got to know that beautyful Valon and a very athmospheric col. Very difficult skiing conditions that day but thats part of the adventure....

The AD grading is due to snow conditions and visibility, otherwise this is a PD.

Tour with Marc and Manuel.