TR: 2013 Maurienne Sans Frontières

A snowHead

We were there last winter and we were there last summer. The Maurienne valley is turning into something of a favourite. It lies just to the South of the 3 Valleys system - the foot of the Orelle lift is right next to the road that runs along the bottom - yet it remains off the radar of most Brits. However, that can't last for long, surely.

Sun, 17 Feb 2013
We flew from Manchester with Jet2 (£526 return for two inc skis) landing, for our first time, at Grenoble. What a tiny airport! There we had a car booked (7 days for £120 inc CDW) with Citer through Holiday Autos. The Ford Focus we had ordered turned into a Citroen C4 with all the gizmos. Nice, but I just want a car I can drive without spending half an hour working out how to turn the radio off!

Still, we were soon on our way to St Jean de Maurienne where the nice man in the Hotel Bernard gave us the same room as last year. I screwed our bindings back on while Mrs A went to check out the tourist office. Sure enough, it is closed on Sundays.

Mon, 18 Feb 2013
I loaded the car while Mrs A trotted back to the tourist office with our photos to purchase our Ski Maurienne Sans Frontières passes. This year they're back down to 5 days, but at only 110 euros they're still good value. Then we were off up the hill to Albiez-Montrond for our first taste of snow in 2013.

We like this small resort more and more. It's very quiet, mostly beginners and families, with nobody huhneing about. But best of all - it's just like an off-piste play park. And, because it's so quiet, the place doesn't get tracked out straight away. There are plenty of lines available to those willing to skin up towards the Pointe d'Emy.

The place is so small that it doesn't take long before you start recognising people. Yet I was still taken aback when, during our picnic lunch, an ESF instructor nodded to me in acknowledgement and said Bonjour!

The village itself is tiny which, together with the long and twisty access road, must limit numbers. I'm not sure I could cope with a whole week there but it would be perfectly suitable for beginners or the timid intermediates. The lift pass is only 120 euros for 6 days and during school holidays they do 2 adults plus 2 children for 240.

After skiing we had a wander round the village. Plenty of old quirky cottages and country smells before the cold got the better of us.

Tue, 19 Feb 2013
Last year we visited Valmeinier so this time we thought we'd give Valloire a go. The two resorts are linked and one SMSF token gives access to both. In the end we stayed mainly on the Valloire side, only dropping down to Valmeinier to visit the nice Chalets de l'Arméra where Mrs A had stayed for a few days on her summer walk along the Tour du Mont Thabor. Here we are on the top of the Crey du Quart looking back at the Aiguilles d'Arves again.

We were a little disappointed really. It was very busy and we even changed queues at one point to speed our progress. The place is okay but not pretty-pretty. The pistes don't hold much interest for us and the off-piste was mostly cut up and crusty.

Wed, 20 Feb 2013
Les Sybelles is the proprietor's favourite ski area - and not without reason. There are 310km of a wide variety of piste spread over 6 stations. But they are not linked together well and moving from one area to the next can be time consuming.

We chose to enter via La Toussuire which is probably the largest station. On the way up we had more fine views of the Aiguille d'Arves.

And here's La Toussuire with tower blocks of Le Corbier behind and the Aiguilles again.

We had a good time exploring spending most of our time between the pistes but the best run of the day was late on under the chair up to the Petit Perron. This North-facing slope had some wonderful snow.

Thu, 21 Feb 2013
Time for Les Karellis. We discovered this wonderful little jewel last year and were keen to get back again. Trouble was, the snow was now getting quite crusty in all the sun. Here we are venturing down the Ruisseau des Moulins but the South-facing slope was quite hard work. We should have been skinning up to this col next to the Paroi du Midi instead but it's quite steep up there.

To celebrate our safe return we splashed out on an excellent lunch in the pretty village of Albane.

And were later treated to some wonderful atmospherics as we concentrated on Mrs A's steeps technique on the great snow in the central bowl.

Towards the end we come upon a ski school snake of tiny tots negotiating a rather icy red. The last one had fallen down and was just sitting there. I skied up behind him and grabbed hold of his collar. His feet looked tangled up but he was quite happy in his unfeasibly wide snow plough. In the end I just lifted him up by his collar and off he went to join the others. Another great day but some nicer snow next time please.

Fri, 22 Feb 2013
The St Sorlin d'Arves section of Les Sybelles looked interesting but access was via a long and wiggly road. Instead we chose to enter via Le Corbier and ski over. This was the only place where the SMSF card didn't work quite as expected an we had to stump up an extra 1.50 each as non-returnable deposit for the card. Hey-ho.

The massive queue for the chair to the top diverted us to the Poma which led only part of the way. This forced us into a little diversion via St Jean d'Arves which is tiny and, again, pretty. The temperature had dropped even further so that any off-piste on this side was like skiing on random blocks of concrete.

We pressed on to St Sorlin where, although pretty again, we found the lifts some way out of the village. Something to consider if you stayed there. Eventually we found some better snow tucked behind Le Grand Perron.

But the run down the Petit Perron was beginning to deteriorate.

There was more between-the-pistes stuff to explore on the way down - most of it hard work and some of it steep. At one point I saw a girl, out of control on an icy blue track, ski straight into another (her sister?) and knock her clean over the edge. The other girl clambered back okay but I saw a ski career off into the distance. Mother had words and, picking up the rest of her gear, told her to walk down the piste. It was steep terrain and looked like fun so down I went, soon finding the ski on it's end in the snow. The young girl was most grateful when I returned it but her mother had skied off with the rest of her kit so she still had a long walk down from further up than this.

Sat, 23 Feb 2013
We had passed through Val Frejus a number of times when touring and thought it might be nice to return. Besides, it was now bitterly cold and snowing and I knew the access road was a relatively easy drive.

First stop, while the weather was still reasonable, was the long blue called Le Jeu which we'd used previously to access Mont Thabor. There were plenty of tourers about - and more snow than we were used to!

In fact the run from the top of the Punta Bagna down Combe and Le Jeu back to the base station took us around 45 minutes. This must be one of the longest blue runs in Europe.

However the weather went from bad to worse and by the time we were back up the top again the light was completely flat and the cloud kept coming and going as did the snow. I started getting grumpy. Conditions were too poor to do any off-piste in comfort and the pistes were just hard and icy. By mid afternoon I found some vaguely soft snow but then took, what I thought was, an awkward drop back onto the piste. In the poor light I hadn't realised that this was just a ledge and it was another metre or so of vertical drop to the real piste. I couldn't understand what was going on until I saw the ground approaching at great speed. I just had time to pull my arms in before I landed flat on my front, winding myself. Oh, that hurt. In fact it still hurts as my right thumb is still swollen and a rib somewhere under my left armpit aches - especially when I sneeze.

By now I was very grumpy and decided to call it a day. Mrs A went on for a few more laps finally finishing on Le Jeu in complete silence on her own.

Sun, 24 Feb 2013
Driving back to the airport was fairly uneventful until we got to Grenoble itself. Mrs Garmin led us through the town where for some reason it was snowing heavily and the, fortunately light, traffic was sliding around.

Back at the airport we checked in early and hung around in the coffee bar. We started chatting to the family sat next to us only to find out that the Mum is the cousin of our next-door neighbours! How weird is that?

Ageing eyes and a new (to me) camera mean that the photos aren't quite as expected. The white balance is off and the resolution is limited. Better luck next time. Anyway, here's an overview of our week.

We're looking forward to returning to Termignon in April for another spot of touring.

A snowHead

altis, Nice TR, thanks for sharing

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Indeed, nice report snowHead

You need to Login to know who's really who.

altis, Thanks. All looks great, same as last year. How did you find the driving there? Specially the uphill bits to the resorts - all windy, narrow and no barriers? Wink

I believe the only place accessible from the valley floor will be Orelle/Val Thorens for extra 10E per day.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Spot on Tom - except for the extra 10 euros you get access to the whole of the 3V. I'd considered it for our last day but we know that area too well.

Yes driving was a bit stressful. Wrong side of the road, car the wrong way round and, for me, enormous too. But I just drove at a speed that I was comfortable with and refused to be bullied by a 73 up my bottom. Although, to be honest, they were mostly courteous. At the end of each day we hung around for a bit to let the worst of the traffic go. There was only one dramatic incident when, on the way down from Val Frejus, someone decided to overtake two cars just before a hairpin. He slid way across the road so that the uphill traffic had to take avoiding action. Most ammusingly we saw him again two minutes later when he'd been pulled by the Gendarmes in a 50 area.

You'll need to Register first of course.

altis, Thanks. Not sure if I fancy the drive every day. Otherwise seems like a great valley to explore (and cheap ski passes). Did you make it to Val Cenis? Looks like it is on the far end of the valley.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I took 7 hours to do the descent from St Sorlin to St Jean de Maurienne in 2006, it was horrendous Shocked

Great report, I shall have to go back one day (I went for half term 2006/7). I didn't follow the bit about the lifts being outside St Sorlin, I don't remember that.

After all it is free

altis,
Great report, I did a similar thing a few years back, basing myself in the haute Maurrienne.
Couple of points on the discussion

Tom W, we're staying in Termignon in April and expect to do Val Cenis on our warm up day. The lifts in the Haute Maurienne tend to start at the road - Bonneval, Val Cenis etc. But there's a big hump in the valley just above Termignon that you have to drive over first. Lower down the valley the resorts are up little side roads.

Yep, the driving is definately the downside of such a trip. You need to find a hotel in the valley to make it work. It generally took 30-45 minutes each way to the resort. This was usually an interesting drive and we just treated it as part of the holiday. We had mostly fine weather if a little cold. The car showed -8C in resort towards the end of the week. But I imagine this could get very nerve-wracking in snow. I was very concious that we only had summer tyres and the composite chains I had taken with us were probably going to be a very tight fit.

Claude B, perhaps the reality of St Sorlin is different but it seemed that the lifts were right at the edge of the village. I imagine there are navettes running about anyway.

T Bar, you're probably right about the Val Thorens pass. This document suggest that it's 44 euros per day just for the VT/Orelle pass:
http://www.valthorens.com/pdf/page-setam/ValThorens-Forfaits-Tarifs-2012-2013-GB.pdf
Which corresponds with the price in the SMSF brochure:
http://www.maurienne-tourisme.com/InfoliveDocuments/pdf/depliant_smsf_12-13-w.pdf

Last year in St Francoise Longchamp we managed to get the whole of the SFL/Valmorel area for one token.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Val Frejus is worth returning to: very extensive off piste, some of it quite tough, going off far from the pistes. La Norma off piste also worth a visit.

At Termignon the trees each side of the top lift of the link from Val Cenis are good.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

I am a big fan of the Haute Maurienne, and have been to Val Cenis and Valloire this year, so this report is an excellent fill in of some other resorts to visit in the future. Thank you.

snow reports

Altis, Good report. What's your take on the hotel? It looks to be functional but not much else. Did you have dinner there? I'm contemplating a similar type road trip in that area next year. I do not know the geography. Is this a good base from which to make day trips? What are the other options for bases and accommodations?

You know it makes sense.

The hotel is certainly functional - but cheap. I spent ages looking at websites for places up a down the valley and couldn't find anywhere that comes close. If you want a modern bathroom suite then look elsewhere but they are very welcoming and were happy to put our skis in their private area and boot liners on the heater in the dining room! They cater for lots of sweaty cyclists in the summer and are very used to dealing with people who are just there for an activity.

They do do evening meals but with one veggie and one gluten-free we preferred to go elsewhere with a bit more turnover. There are plenty of reasonable restaurants nearby. I'd recommend:
Bar Pizzerria Le Montanna (very welcoming, English spoken and good food)
Le Gavroche (smart and ditto)
Le San Mario (clean but basic, good food at very reasonable prices)

For accomodation that's more upmarket I'd recommend the Relais de la Diligence in Bramans a bit further up the valley. Absolutely wonderful home cooking in a luxuriously renovated barn. A good bit pricier though.

Google maps is quite useful. Look at the valley and then type "hotel" into the search box. Lots of thumbtacks should appear with some details of each hotel.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Cool photos and TR, but those borders on the photos are rather intrusive.

A snowHead

bobmcstuff, indeedy. Unfortunately, the script what I wrote doesn't take account of the size of the photograph and just slaps on a fixed width border and text. Works fine with my normal shots but somehow I managed to set up my camera to its minimum resolution so they look huge. Sorry!

A snowHead

We did the Maurienne valley around Easter 2009 and found it to be a great value pass to explore some areas we hadn't skied. Stayed in a very very cheap apartment in Le Corbier (I think it was less than £100 for a week as it was late season). We were driving out for our usual end of season visit to sons in Meribel but added this on as an extra area so had our own vehicle with winter tyres. End of season snow was a bit thin in places and we had to hike back once as a lift was closed somewhere in Sybelles - but we are used to 'combat skiing' as we call it! We did loose the resort (and where we had left the car!!) in very thick fog at the end of the day either in Valloire or Valmeinier? Were having our last late run down, we thought into resort, then discovered nobody else around. Continued skiing down what we thought was a piste to find we were in the pisteur's garage about a km below the resort and had to carry the skis back up. First (and last?) time we have lost the resort!! There was a short drive to whichever area we were skiing each day but we drive a lot in the alps and late season the roads were completely clear.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Great report but our regular clients who have been going to the Maurienne for many years now would like to keep it quiet so they will be hoping that everyone who goes to the Tarentaise, because that's where you go, won't turn right after Chambery next year (or even later this season as this is where I am off to with the family) wink

Help!!

TR: 2013 Maurienne Sans Frontières

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