The Vallons de la Meije and Vallons de Chancel might not be everybody’s idea of easy skiing, but ease is relative. In La Grave these long off-piste runs provide the standard routes down for those who want to avoid extreme terrain, couloirs, crevasse zones or ropework. Like the Valley Blanche in Chamonix, they are skiable…
The European Ski School’s Off-Piste:Freeride Course is a new product this winter, taking advantage of the wonderful terrain Les Deux Alpes has to offer. We will cover the techniques, skills and safety aspects of off-piste skiing over five full days, whilst exploring the mountain world beyond the marker posts. This course is running in conjunction…
Click here to watch the video edit of this course on YouTube. Every autumn, Les Deux Alpes opens for skiing for a week or more over October half-term. In conjunction with Tip-Top ski coaching I offer an under-16s Freeride course this week, running concurrently with TipTop’s adult piste performance course. The camp consists of five…
Chazelet has to be one of my favourite resorts for a day trip. A small, alpine village that retains a timeless charm – this is one place that truly deserves to be called ‘unspoilt’. The resort statistics are underwhelming on paper – there are 5 lifts serving a staggering 6 kilometres of pistes, but the…
People I ski with in Deux Alpes often ask where my favourite ski resort is. They sometimes seem surprised when I tell them “here”. The fact is, I have chosen to live here, work here, ski here, and buy an apartment here. If some other resort was my favourite I would be doing all those…
My final ski tour of last winter was one that I had been wanting to do for some time. The Col du Replat connects the Selle and Etancons valleys which lead to St. Christoph and La Berarde respectively. The previous summer Jon and I had done most of the route in reverse, climbing the Tete…
Chazelet is a tiny but beautiful little ski resort with south facing slopes across the valley from the La Grave lift. It has five lifts, five pistes, and one very nice mountain restaurant. A reasonable skier will exhaust the on-piste possibilities in a morning, but the off-piste can be great on the right day and…
The Aiguilles Rouges route from La Toura is one of the two classic descents from Les Deux Alpes to St. Christoph, the other being the Vallon de la Selle. Like the Selle, the run is mostly south facing, so it can be a fantastic descent in spring conditions. The normal route descends through a choice…
At the moment I am working through the International Mountain Leader (IML) award. Part of this means logging mountain walking days outside the UK, so it seems like a good idea to post some route descriptions of the better routes here for others to follow, and in anticipation of being qualified to lead these walks…
The Col de Laurichard from the north east is deservedly one of the most popular ski tours in the Combynot nature reserve. Like several routes on this site it starts from the Col du Lautaret giving you the advantage of being able to start at over 2000 metres. The Combeynot range is always popular with…
