Val d'Isere BackCountry Snow Report: 22nd February 2015

At the beginning of the week we decided to head out towards Barme de l'Ours which can be accessed from either the Borsat or Grand Pre Chairlift in Val d’Isere. There is a short ski down from Grand Pre where we chose to begin our journey, this takes you out in the direction of the Parc National de le Vanoise to the Ruisseau du Charvet at around 2400 metres. From there it is about an hour and a half skin up towards the base of Le Sana at approximately 2800 metres. On the route up we overtook one small group of skiers and didn’t see another soul until around 12noon!

The ski down was absolutely breathtaking. There were a few sets of tracks here and there but we managed to find out own lines down and we skied approximately 1000 vertical of skiing over the next hour. The snow was creamy powder at the top and slightly firmer at the bottom of the valley. We also encountered a small amount of spring snow at the lower half of the descent. The route takes you through the bottom of the Tour d’ Charvais and into the Manchet valley where you can pick up the Manchet Express back up to Solaise. It was an excellent route and most definitely worth the effort!

Mid-week we decided to explore the Pissales Glacier as we had a small dump of snowfall in town which actually put around 30-40 centimetres up on the glacier in Le Fornet. Wednesday was an incredibly busy day and we waited approximately 25 minutes at the bottom of the Cascade Chairlift which definitely confirmed that our decision to skin that day was the right one! Once at the top of the Pissales Glacier we hooked into Pays Desert and managed to find some fresh snow amongst the crowds who had also hit it that morning.

We skied down the main route then slapped our skins on for a quick 20 minute hike to around 2800 metres which gave us access to a huge open face of fresh powder which had been completely untouched all day. The ski down was short but exceptionally sweet with beautiful fresh light powder all the way down to the Pays Desert drag lift. With snow this good we couldn’t resist another run and the second was just as good at the first. It felt good to be skiing such amazing untouched snow only a few hundred metres away from one of the biggest lift queues I have been in all year!

On Friday a few friends and I decided to head over to Tignes and ski the Terre Rouge ski route which is towards and above the Vallon du Sache. The skin up was fairly exposed with the final section on a steep south facing slope so it was essential that we were there before midday before the snow began to soften up.  The ski down was completely untracked with perfect creamy powder  on the top section and slightly firmer snow lower down as we neared the Sache. It was a beautiful bluebird day and we didn’t see anyone else out for all of our trip. It was very enjoyable to explore an area that I very rarely visit in the company of good friends.

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NB: Off piste skiing and mountaineering are dangerous. The opinions expressed in these articles are very much time and condition specific and the content is not intended in any way to be a substitute for hiring a mountain guide, undergoing professional mountaineering training and/or the individual's own back country decision making.