 Poster: A snowHead
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I went to Alpe du Grande Serre today with a couple of friends and we had a cracking time. It did take a fair while to get there (1.5 hours from here) but that's largely due to a rather tortuous road up from Sechiliennne which is the last village before the Payage de Vizille on the way down. It's bye-passed and you have to go into the village, which was quite like old times for me, although my friends are later comers to LDA. 
After what seemed like about 100miles of uphill (it was 12 kms apparently), we came out onto a large alpe. Lo and behold it was coverd in little chalets all a decent distance from each other - very reminiscent of old Swiss and Austrian resorts. Very pretty indeed. Lots of trees too.
Of course we had to have a coffee before we could start out, and then we trotted up two of only 3 chairlifts which took us onto a ridge and we could see a valley, a number of lifts and another valley in the distance. If you find a piste map we went up Blache and then Serriou
and then skied down to Patres which took us up onto the ridge between Les Bergeres and the Col de la Chinarde.
At this point we skied all the blue runs off the Olliere lift
and had this magnificant view over the back from the top of it
and then came back to Les Bergeres for a drink at the only restaurant on the mountain. Obviously built without a loo originally they had those eco loos like at LG in a separate building.  We then went up another long poma called Parche and skied down a blue called (originally) Marmottes.  This brought us to the bottom of an extraordinary dog leg poma by the name of Perollier which accessed a couple of red runs, Fontaine Froide and Lava. I went up this on my own and skied the Fontaine Froide back to the bottom where my pals were waiting for me and having a nice rest. 
Finally up the chairlift Portes Sud and back to the original ridge and down the village side, all in shadow now using the blue run Les Clots and then on to the green home run Mollaret.
I considered doing another couple of the reds on the village side on my own, but was concerned about the time, and rightly so as we got back to LDA about 18.00, and I got into my house at 18.30.
What was good about the place? It's very attractive, small (good in my book), not crowded and we were the only foreigners there. What was not so good? Lots of very long and quite steep drag lifts, which didn't bother me but did wear out my companions.
The village height is 1367m and the top is 2184m. There are two delightful nursery lifts away from any other skiers and a quite extensive cross country ski area. It's very pretty and I think would be fun for small children to learn at. There is clearly some quite interesting off piste and somw pretty steep pitches could be seen from the lifts and pistes. It's presumably possible to ski down to the lake and town you can see from the back of Ollieres. There is parking for motorhomes and we found everyone very friendly. It's cheap. There would not be any nightlife except a drink at the bar. I don't know how many Kms of piste they have; I would guess around 50 -75 .... not enough for the distance freaks anyway.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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nice trip report easiski, and some lovely pics both you and Lizzard, ....Looks/sounds a bit like my kind of place!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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brian
brian
Guest
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easiski, Lizzard, good reports, thanks. Looks like a wee gem.
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Almost certainly heading over in a couple of weeks. Looks great but it's no resort Q.
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Lizzard, I went to the DAL and asked, and the girl in the TO bit went and asked, and looked it up, and when I got home I also looked it up on the website to be sure - it used to be on there, but it deffo isn't any more. If it's different let me know and I'll demand my money back for the liftpass from the DAL TO side!!
Swirly, As I know where resort Q is - not it's not, but my friends are not up to skiing ................ (I won't le the cat out of the bag).  TBH most people are not interested in anywhere with only one lift anyway ....
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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easiski, thought you might
As for the the off piste the Grande Serre couloirs are supposed to be quite good although very avvy prone.
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Swirly, there were a number of avvi debris slopes - didn't spot much in the way of couloirs, but I bet there's a shedload of good skiing there when there's fresh.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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It's a cracking little resort. I was lucky enough to turn up there midweek last Janaury after about 20 cms of fresh had fallen overnight. We had the place pretty much too ourselves and just made fresh tracks all day. A couple of friends has season pases from AdH which allowed them to ski for free - as Lizard says, the lifts are owned by SATA.
It'll be one of the places on my list when my daughter starts to ski as there was a refreshing lack of nutters skiing at high speed into the village!
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Red Dave, Not only that but there are two really nice little nursery slopes away from the skiers descending.
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You know it makes sense.
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The colouirs: mind you look at that wet snow slide left of the trees, they look pretty steep from not even that close up.
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