Col des Rachasses

Col des Rachasses

As a ski instructor, I don’t want to add too many glacier ski tours to the site. We aren’t high mountain guides at White Marmotte, so we don’t take customers onto glaciers. (This article is purely my personal view, for information only). The Col…

Col du Belvedere

Crossing Lac Blanc with the Col du Belvedere behind

With a magnificent setting, a sunny aspect, and an amenable 500 – 800 metres of ascent, the Col du Belvedere is a great introduction to ski touring in Chamonix. The route takes you from the edge of the Flegere ski area to the summer…

Roche Château ski tour

Summit

This is another nice ski tour in the Mont Thabor range. We did it on the last day of the TipTop trip to the Drayères Refuge in April. This is slightly shorter than the previous route (Rocher de la Grande Tempête) and more southerly…

Rocher de la Grande Tempête

A break on the way up

The Refuge des Drayeres in the Mont Thabor range is a superb base for a few days ski touring, with plenty of routes suiting beginners to experts. The Rocher de la Grande Tempête is the first tour I did from the Refuge on a…

Pic des Trois Evêchés

Jon climbing

The Pic des Trois Evêchés from the Col du Lauteret runs parallel to the very popular Pic Blanc ski tour from the same start point. In many ways, it feels like a longer version of that route. Both tours take you north-east from the…

Mont de l’Arpille

Halfway view

Few ski tours are safe enough to do when the avalanche risk is a high four out of five. Mont de l’Arpille is one of those that can be a possibility. The mountain rises to a height of 2085 metres, which is quite modest…

Pic Blanc du Galibier

For my first day off since Christmas I was itching to get out and do some ski touring. It still hadn’t snowed for a while, meaning that the snow was safe but not the most pleasant to ski on, and you needed to head…

Les Deux Alpes to La Berarde via the Col du Replat

Col-du-Replat

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…

La Petite Buffe (2683m) – Chazelet

Petite Buffe trig point

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,…

Col de Laurichard (2654m)

View

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…