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Val d'Isere Snow Report: 17th January 2012

The Col de Four. Skiing off piste in Espace Killy

featured in Snow report Author Debbie Priestley, Val d'Isere Reporter Updated

Espace Killy is continuing to thrive under sunshine and blue skies these days, with perfect pistes and mild-ish temperatures.

I’m on an ISIA Mountain Safety course right through till Friday, so today’s snow report might be of more interest to those who like to ski off-piste, still, I hope it’s a good read for everyone!

I spent the day touring around the back of the Val d’Isere ski area, on a route that can only be described as hell for a snowboarder! That said, I did have an awesome day. We started in Le Fornet in Val d’Isere, at the top of the bubble lift, Vallon de l’Iseran, where we took the traverse line round towards the Col de Four. This can be an amazing ski, but today, with the current hard and slightly icy conditions, it wasn’t the nicest of traverses. If you’re on a snowboard, you need to stay as high as possible, and have a kind skier with you to give you a tow occasionally, if you’re lucky. After the traverse, when you arrive below the Col, you then have to hike, or tour, up to the Col itself. It’s not a bad tour, with skins and, ideally, crampons, although there are a few scary bits. I’m on a split snowboard so I could skin instead of snowshoe! On reaching the summit, we stopped for lunch and the view was out of this world! You can see for miles, and today, everything was crystal clear.

The route down from the Col is usually a fairly gentle ski, no more hiking needed, and takes you down the back of the Cugnai chair lift (in the Solaise area) and then down into the Le Manchet Valley where you can take the Manchet Express chair lift back up into the Solaise area. Today, as we were all learning about guiding, we took it in turns to lead the group. I was the only snowboarder (and girl) so had a few issues, as anyone who boards will know, with flat areas. We somehow missed the easy route out, it looked great, way up above us, and ended up on a very flat plain. Board off, start boot-packing! Still, it was a beautiful day; at least I wasn’t stuck in a storm! The next bit was even more of a challenge though.

Our chosen route took us into a narrow gully, which quickly got even narrower. We enjoyed a nice little side slip into a very narrow couloir, had to take our kit off, climb down between the rocks, and then slide down an ice slide to finish! It was a pretty exciting day! Luckily the last section didn’t involve much more walking, until the flat light caught me unaware and I did a cartwheel. That was self inflicted though!

Even with all the trials and tribulations of today, I would recommend the route to anyone on skis or even a board, as long as you are with a guide who knows how to navigate the bottom of the route, avoiding any cliffs or gullies. We found pockets of good snow too, and with the sunshine it was a great day.

Thanks should go to the guys who rescued my pole and then me at points throughout the day.

The pistes are pretty fantastic here too at the moment!

Bon Ski!

Stats

Avalanche Risk
  • Level 1

Snow Report
  • Total Pistes: 164

  • Alt. Resort: 1850

  • Alt. Summit: 3000

  • Alt. Last Snow: 1850

  • High Temp.: -3

  • Alt. High Temp.: 2000

  • Latest Conditions: Beautiful clear blue skies!