Congratulations to Yannick Boissenot and Julien “Pica” Herry for pulling off the first ski and snowboard descent of the Beuf-Sara couloir, in Chamonix on February 9th. The highly technical achievement required a healthy dose of climbing followed by a trip down full of extremely exposed no fall zones. There’s a good reason why this was never done before and these boys should feel proud (FULL BREAKDOWN BELOW):
Yannick Boissenot and Julien “Pica” Herry Last Sunday, despite a pessimistic weather forecast, Julien Pica Herry took the first lift of the Midi with Yannick Boissenot. After an hour of touring, the mixt climbing on the rock brought some spice to their morning. After leading and fighting for 20m Pica was happy to find a bolted belay and have a rest, climbing with the board on the backpack was as hard as expected. Then Yannick took the lead for another 30m, climbing was never too hard but finding good protections was delicate. A short traverse to the left finally brought them in the couloir that they could easily climb the first 100meters. Their hope for a hidden snow ramp to exit the couloir vanished quickly so they climb a short steeper icy step in the couloir instead. Snow quickly got soft under the sun on the exit ramps and they managed to ridge a small pass around 3000 meters… On the way down snow was variable but mostly soft and they made a first 15m rappel to link the top ramps and the main couloir. Then the skiing became a bit more technical until the last 40m steep rappel.
Couloir Beuf Sara 350m 5.2 E2 40/50° M5? for the climbing (4+/5 in summer)
images from picaherry IG