La Trace de Vaugel

After racing in the French Vertical champs on Saturday the last thing I felt like doing was racing on Sunday, but I knew that doing back to back races would be good training for the Pierra Menta in March. Jane was racing with the DSA president, Cecile, so we were out the door at 5am to meet up with my team mate Thomas and other DSA members for the drive up to the Les Arcs area to race in the La Trace de Vaugel, a teams race of about 2200 vertical meters.
This was a huge contradiction to Saturdays race. A lot of people don't consider a vertical race to be a "real" ski mountaineering race (a view I some what share,despite really liking the idea behind a vertical race) and even more shy away from "championships". Longer, teams races, like the La Trace de Vaugel, on the other hand are very popular and much more social.
This was going to be the longest race either Jane or I had ever done, so we were both excited and nervous at how we would handle the extra vert. The course was really interesting, we started in a small road, surrounded by small cottages and run for about 100m on the road before starting to skin. The first climb was long and included some steep skinning with lots of tricky kick turns in a heavily treed area before getting out into the alpine and sun. On the first ski it was pretty clear that the skiing was going to be less than average, with breakable zipper crust. On the 2nd climb Thomas pointed out that Mt Blanc, France's highest point, was right in font of us! The 2nd ski was spicy, with a steep,double fall line and a cliff to one side. At this point I think we were about 18th or 19th place, but as Thomas skied down fast behind another racer he turned on to the "B" course! the racer he was following was in fact the leader of the singles race, so he was going the right was, but Thomas was not..........
I managed to yell loud enough that he back tracked to the fork and we skied down the rest of the A course, but had lost 5-7mins. It was a bit of a bummer, but its not like we were in the lead or going to finish in the top 3 or anything. All part of fun! We started the 3 climb and passed the slower racers quickly and I arrived at the top before Thomas and was able to help him with his transition and we passed a few more team here also. For the 4th and final climb we busted out the bungee and I "towed" Thomas. We picked off 2 more teams and even passed another team on the final ski down! When the snow disappeared we put our skis on our packs and ran a few hundred meters to the finish line.
We finished in about 3hrs27mins and in about 23rd place. Jane and Cecile finished in 5th for the girls division.
It was a really fun race and the course was very interesting. The standard 3 course meal followed, including a selection of cheese and wine, but unfortunately no Tartiflette this weekend.....
Stephan raced in the B course this weekend, finshed in 5th place and was still able to put together this short video! Nice one Stephane.