Dom on half way to the Bic Blanc

Climbing from the bottom

Meeting friends in the mountains

Hi everyone,

I went to Col du Lautaret last weekend the 1st - 3rd of Feb, and we all had an awesome time. We had very light wind on Friday and only in a small area on the Col and no wind on the Col on Saturday. But there was wind down the valley in the flat of Le Casset. The flat bores you after a while so we decided to check the Col in the afternoon. Chasta was already on his way and when we passed his car that he parked beside the road about 2km before the Col we could only see him climbing up steep mountains between trees and rocks. That was definitely too much for us so we took some lunch while watching Chasta climbing higher and higher with his kite.

We had about 10cm of fresh snow during the night and blue sky on Sunday with strong south easterly winds. We got to the Col as early as we could but when we arrived at 11am the crew had already been to the Col du Galibier and back. They were using 8m MantaII and smaller kites. So we went out and all of a sudden I managed to get to the Galibier within 5 minutes which included one time packing down the kite to traverse underneath the power line. The wind was strong and basically everywhere so we spread out and everyone went for his own exploration. South easterly is the perfect direction for the Col du Lautaret area and wherever you went you met other snowkiters on their way in the mountains. It was truly amazing and on the actual spot you could only recognize from the top about 3-4 inflatable kites struggling with the gusty winds they got there - What a laugh! It was the most amazing day and I never managed to climb so much altitude in such a short period. Snowkiting truly is 3D!

Check out the video from Johann who documented his day on his helmet cam until he ran out of battery for his last summit.

See you up at the top – explore the mountains!

Cheers Dom

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