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Looking for a French resort with good amounts of accessible off piste skiing.....any suggestions?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Hi all,

I'm trying to organise a weeks skiing in January next year. Done loads of skiing before and am of a very competent level both on and off the piste. A couple of mates and I are trying to find a resort in France that has plenty of off piste opportunities for our holiday this coming season.

In short, does anyone have any suggestions? I've skied most (not all) of the major and most popular resorts in France but wondered if there are any "hidden gems" out there?

I've heard good things about Tignes, can anyone confirm this?

Thanks a lot,
J.
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Jonny - Tignes is super.
The best thing is that you can see all the powder from the pistes.
You dont have to go very far from the runs to get fresh tracks either!
And most of it seems to be very safe Very Happy
Everyone was doing the back country when I was there with the family.
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Quote:

most of it seems to be very safe

Hmm....
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Quote:

And most of it seems to be very safe

yag_si_HS, You have the experience to determine that?
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Jonny88, Tignes is real good, but not a very "hidden gems" take a look for this thread
http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=79251#1852573
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Tignes is hardly a "hidden gem" being one of the largest and post popular ski resorts in the world and I think it is propably the best resort I have been to. I assume you know that St. Foy is often spoken of as a resort with lots of off piste potential and La Grave is entirely off piste. Because they are in the mountains and it is winter and there is (often) snow almost every resort has lots of off piste available. It is just a what levels of fitness, navigation, mountaineering and hazzard awareness skills you have that are the real questions. Unfortuenately these skills take years to aquire and we normally circumvernt many of them by hiring a guide who knows what he is doing.

If the question is really "reccomend a resort that is relatively unknown that has readily accessible off piste" then some suggestion include St. Foy, Bonneville sur Arc, Les Sept Laux, St. Francois en Longchamps. There are hundreds of ski resorts in France that are almost unknown in the UK some of them, such as Les Sept Laux, are bigger than almost everything in North America.

A really good place to reserch the offpiste potential of resorts and one of the best ski resort guides on the internet is http://pistehors.com. Try it. The books by Didier Givois are very good "coffee table" books to whet your appetite during the long evenings of autumn. I saw the Les clés de Paradiski offered on sale on Amazon for £75. Second hand! It is a beautiful book howewer.

Hope this helps

John
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Les cles del'espace killy (bilingual) is definitely worth investing in if your are considering Tignes. January is a great time - but make sure you get a guide/off piste lessons if you are going far beyond tehpiste markers
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Freeheelskier - I have skied in Tignes for 3 weeks!!
Also I am also a purple standard SCGB skier.

Its a great place for doing backcountry. Obviously I have heard some of the runs can be dangerous, but we only stay on the safe ones not far from the mains runs where there is always lots of people (and you can follow tracks).
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Quote:

and you can follow tracks



rolling eyes
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ski wrote:
Quote:

and you can follow tracks




..that reminds me I must find my copy of Lemmings Sad
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Argentiere.
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I thought following others tracks was one of the first things you learn NOT to do off=piste. rolling eyes
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boredsurfin wrote:
ski wrote:
Quote:

and you can follow tracks




..that reminds me I must find my copy of Lemmings Sad


Laughing Laughing
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Hells Bells, I think Yob yag is being naughty...
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
an even more hidden gem, with plenty of off piste, is Areches-Beaufort. Small piste mileage. You are unlikely to hear any English spoken (or indeed anything else in January - it's v quiet!)
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Yes, I agree with Tignes / Val d'Isere (I particularly like the Fornet area) but the Paradiski area (Les Arcs and La Plagne) and Les Trois Vallee area (Val Thorens / Meribel etc) are also good, and Montgenevre is good too and slightly less well known.
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Nobody has mentioned Deux Alpes Puzzled

And it's a great excuse to point to this ancient stoke thread ... http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=45488 Very Happy
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Quote:

Freeheelskier - I have skied in Tignes for 3 weeks!!

yag_si_HS, Oohh,, you have ski Tignes 3 weeks, and can say its safe Puzzled I have make one season there and spend minimum 3 weeks every year the last 30 year there or in val d isere, and I will never say that its safe to ski offpist,,,
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moffatross, thanks for that, good times snowHead Makes me laugh to think how little we knew back then/how much of an adventure it all was.

Anyway, yeah Deux Alpes although the obvious stuff tracks fast, isn't always safe and has a high proportion of muppets on it. The better stuff is out the way and requires a degree of map reading and organisation that's hard to do in a week. You do get La Grave though which is worth some, more or all of anyone's time. Verbier (admittedly not French but they do speak it) is a good choice too, you'd struggle to kill yourself there providing you could see where you were going. 7 Lakes is a good suggestion almost unheard of by the UK public but a massive freeride reputation. Portes de Soliel has plenty of nice tree skiing.
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La Grave requires a guide and, except for the 2 main descents, are very steep. It is easy to go off a cliff there.
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Quote:

La Grave requires a guide


with the greatest of respect balls. La Grave requires you to have some mountain sense. Nothing more nothing less. This blanket La Grave is mega gnarly you need a guide blather blather puts so many people off going over there and discovering a completely different side to skiing. Yes you need to know where you're going, yes you need to understand mountain safety and yes if you can't you should go with people who do. But as a statement La Grave needs a guide no more than my bathroom.
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Swirly wrote:

La Grave needs a guide no more than my bathroom


I kinda feel that comment is meaningless without pictures... Twisted Evil
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As I said, the two main ways down are no problem. Most of the rest you would have to be crazy to do on your own - particularly the routes down to the valley via the glacier. Several of the many couloirs need ropes unless you are an extreme skier (some even if you are an extreme skier). When I was last there the guides were avoiding many of the usual couloirs because the snow was very hard and a fall could have been fatal. Most of the couloirs have sections at 40º or more.

Sure you can go there for the day and ski the main 2 valleys which become almost like pistes after a while, but you still need to be with someone who knows where to go. On the right hand one I once made a route finding mistake following tracks and found myself facing a very steep, icy couloir on my own when I had thought I was heading for the Bananne.

However there is no point in doing a whole holiday there without a guide. Even knowing the resort a bit, on unguided days I've twice found myself on the edge of a cliff and had to climb out a bit.

Yes, you could do it with someone who knows the place well and is not a qualified guide but how well do they really know conditions etc? How well can they assess what you can do safely? You would need to be sure of them.
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snowball wrote:
Sure you can go there for the day and ski the main 2 valleys which become almost like pistes after a while, but you still need to be with someone who knows where to go. On the right hand one I once made a route finding mistake following tracks and found myself facing a very steep, icy couloir on my own when I had thought I was heading for the Bananne.


isn't the Banane down the left hand one Wink
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Oops, you are right. No wonder I didn't find it rolling eyes (mind you, this was 15 years ago)
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Jonny88, if your going in Jan, then a good choice for off piste would be St Foy, it will be super quiet will feel like your own resort. You can ski off piste from the top to the bottom and still be insight of all the runs.

There are also quite a few off piste runs that can be done with a guide, or if the group is up to it and has all the right kit then you can still hike and keep within the resort.

A good place to stay is http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/winintro.htm

please note not on commision for this Toofy Grin
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Quote:

Most of the rest you would have to be crazy to do on your own - particularly the routes down to the valley via the glacier. Several of the many couloirs need ropes unless you are an extreme skier


Mountain sense and the ability to read a route description/map and use it. If you're going to go off somewhere then you should have a good idea what to expect and what to do if it gets a bit much. If you're going off the glacier somewhere then you should have ropes anyway just by vir

Quote:

When I was last there the guides were avoiding many of the usual couloirs because the snow was very hard and a fall could have been fatal. Most of the couloirs have sections at 40º or more.



Mountain sense, there's invariably somewhere safe to fall where you can ski first and think this is a bit icy the couloirs are probably a bad idea today. If the first 1000 m of Chancel are a bit hard then it's a fair bet the lake couloirs are, if it's grim in the trees to P1 then don't do Freaux etc. Moreover, there's a big sign and a bloke at the bottom who will quite happily talk about this sort of thing with you.

Quote:

On the right hand one I once made a route finding mistake following tracks and found myself facing a very steep, icy couloir on my own when I had thought I was heading for the Bananne.



Being able to read a map/route description. Banane you can stand opposite and have a look at exactly how to get to the top of it on your next run, same for the other lake couloirs. The hidden one you can pretty much get into the top of and traverse back out if you don't like it. I know this as it was the first couloir I did and we chose it based on the escapability if I didn't like it. You could sidestep/traverse out from above Banane too if you wanted to. You will need to be more inventive for things you can't see e.g. stuff skiers left of the glacier: maps, guidebooks, photos and trip reports (especially on skipass.fr) are a good place to start.

Quote:

However there is no point in doing a whole holiday there without a guide.


We did over 10 days there through that season without using a guide, although some locals showed us how to find Voute. Had a great time. Over a week when you can't pick and choose days a guide may be useful to learn about conditions. I may be a bit biased but my experiences with guides have generally been unfavourable also I tend to approach a lot of things with the self-sufficiency associated with mountaineering which I believe off piste skiing has more in common with than it does piste skiing. As I said above if you don't have these skills then you need to be with people that do be it friends, an instructor or a guide. Learning this stuff isn't hard (although it takes time) and opens so much more to you, moreover, I guarantee you'll have a better experience skiing a big line with your mates than being shepherded down it by a guide.

Quote:

how well do they really know conditions etc?


Ask them, if what they say doesn't tally with what you see disregard their opinion. Ski with them, they can judge your ability and you theirs after all this is what a guide would do. Again in LG there is a guide paid to give advice to anyone that asks. I doubt any of the staff in Ski Extreme in Deux Alpes are any less clued in to conditions than any of the guides.


You might have guessed this is a bit of a personal crusade for me. I feel that a lot of people are put off trying things as there's an aura of needing a guide and that some places are super extreme when there's plenty of things to do that aren't.
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Swirly,
Quote:

I feel that a lot of people are put off trying things as there's an aura of needing a guide and that some places are super extreme when there's plenty of things to do that aren't.


I think we need to have a bit of perspective here. If you have sufficient experience - then of course you can ski LG without a guide.

If, on the other hand, your only experince of offpiste is limited to skiing by the side of a piste in a conventional resort, then you'll be safer, and have more fun with a guide.

So I think I am saying 'If you need to ask, then you need a guide'


Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Wed 14-09-11 13:17; edited 1 time in total
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Hells Bells wrote:
I thought following others tracks was one of the first things you learn NOT to do off=piste. rolling eyes


I've heard this piece of advice lots of times, and I still don't understand why doing so is materially more dangerous than picking a line covered in fresh snow with no tracks on it. Can someone explain for my tiny brain please.
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paulio, the advice should be "don't follow tracks assuming they lead somewhere which is safe and/or you can cope with"
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 Poster: A snowHead
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paulio, tracks may give a false sense of security. There can be a tendency to follow them blindly as they seem to go where you want to go and the next thing you know you're stuck somewhere you really don't want to be. If there was no track then you may have paid more attention to where you were going in the first place.
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ski, which is kind of my point but
Quote:

If you have sufficient experience - then of course you can ski LG without a guide.


becomes "you need a guide fullstop". Which gets regurgitated ad nauseum and stops people going.

also
Quote:

skiing by the side of a piste in a conventional resort,


quite often can be more dangerous than skiing the trade routes at La Grave, as hinted above there are numerous places in Tignes where this is true. Flaine is also pretty notorious for different reasons.
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Swirly - I agree that people should aspire to to be self sufficient in the mountains.
Certainly any decent skier that can read a map / snow report / avalanche bulletin could, and should, happily ski the main vallons on their own.

I do however disagree with your ''anti-guide" stance.
IMHO its arrogant to look down on those that do want to hire a mountain guide for skiing places like La Grave.
Because the correct answer always depends on your skill level, experience, sense of adventure and also aspirations for the day.
Would personally happily ski LG on my own. But if I wanted to climb La Meije (for example) then I would need a guide Wink

A good mountain guide will help find the best terrain and snow - not just keep you safe. At La Grave there is some incredible skiing, that can only be discovered safely with local knowledge of both terrain and conditions. For many people, this means hiring a guide ? (unless your lucky enough to have local contacts).

IMHO somewhere like the ''Skiers Lodge'' is perhaps the best adventure your average UK (2 or 3 weeks a year) skier could ever have on snow ?


Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Wed 14-09-11 14:13; edited 2 times in total
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Quote:

I've heard this piece of advice lots of times, and I still don't understand why doing so is materially more dangerous than picking a line covered in fresh snow with no tracks on it.


They may not have known where they were going. They may have known where they were going, have a pair of 50m ropes and you don't. They may be clueless and have just skied a dangerous slope and been lucky.

In respect of the OP question, almost anywhere is good. I have a particular fondness for AdH and La Plagne. Both have a massive vertical drop, moderately challenging terrain and don't see that much traffic.

Quote:

moffatross, thanks for that, good times Makes me laugh to think how little we knew back then/how much of an adventure it all was.


Indeed. I was almost as clueless as yag_si_HS is pretending to be. I haven't seen a good faux naive troll in a while so congrats. Alpinezone is still the daddy on that front, mind.
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gorilla wrote:
Quote:

I've heard this piece of advice lots of times, and I still don't understand why doing so is materially more dangerous than picking a line covered in fresh snow with no tracks on it.


They may not have known where they were going. They may have known where they were going, have a pair of 50m ropes and you don't. They may be clueless and have just skied a dangerous slope and been lucky.


None of which makes 'following tracks' materially more dangerous than 'picking an untracked route'.

I get it now though. It's a stupid statement that means nothing at all, and should be rephrased as "don't leap blindly into the unknown".
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Swirly,
Quote:

skiing by the side of a piste in a conventional resort,



quite often can be more dangerous than skiing the trade routes at La Grave, as hinted above there are numerous places in Tignes where this is true. Flaine is also pretty notorious for different reasons.


yep ! What I meant by this was, if you are used to a very signposted resort-type run - so for example, more or less anything you can access directly from the piste in Tignes, without walking.. you are not likely to end up at the top of a cliff. Both main routes in La Grave do give a cliff-top option !


Quote:

IMHO somewhere like the ''Skiers Lodge'' is perhaps the best adventure your average UK (2 or 3 weeks a year) skier could ever have on snow ?



Yep - but let's keep it amongst ourselves shall we ? wink
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Swirly, you are speaking here from a completely different perspective from the person who asked the question. What you say is only true for a tiny proportion of skiers. Only a tiny proportion of skiers even buy 1:25,000 maps of the places they ski and even fewer buy books describing off-piste routes (and probably most of those probably shouldn't try to find routes just based on a (usually rather ambiguous) description. I have several books of that type and normally buy a map but I didn't even know there was a book on La Grave routes. Your stance that anyone should be able to judge avalanche danger is just not realistic.
At most resorts, though there are some dangerous places, it is possible to ski a large number of routes in most conditions and the punishment for going somewhere you don't know or for mistakes in route finding are generally just not as severe as at La Grave.
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Quote:

IMHO its arrogant to look down on those that do want to hire a mountain guide for skiing places like La Grave.


Maybe I'm expressing myself badly, there's nothing wrong with doing this at all. My point is it's wrong to tell everyone it's the way you have to do it. If we take the OP at face value he has plenty of on/off piste experience so there is no reason why he couldn't stay in L2A and ski a couple of days in La Grave which is what I suggested originally. On previous threads on the subject I've said (and still believe) that the best option for a "decent skier that can read a map / snow report / avalanche bulletin" who finds themselves in LG should at least ski Vallons/Chancel with their mates one day and do the lake couloirs the next. After that they could either roll on down to St Christophe or get a guide and tell them what they've done and ask to do a bit more.

Although I've had a few bad experiences with guides I have nothing against them and certainly nothing against people using them. I just think people should be aware there are other options available.

Edit to add: In fact in the future I can very much see time/work constraints mean I will be using a guide fairly often, particularly for expedition type things which take so much pre-planning.


Last edited by After all it is free Go on u know u want to! on Wed 14-09-11 14:39; edited 1 time in total
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snowball wrote:
Swirly, you are speaking here from a completely different perspective from the person who asked the question.


How do you know? He says he's very competent.

Quote:
Your stance that anyone should be able to judge avalanche danger is just not realistic.


I doubt there are more than a handful of people in the world that could get this spot on every time but anyone skiing off piste should have a bloody good clue about it.
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For me, the thing about La Grave and (bits of Chamonix) is that it's just so easy to stray from everything being hunkydory to life-threatening.

Paulio, in principle slopes that have been skied should be less likely to avalanche than those that haven't been skied as the weight of the skiers will tend to stabilise the slope.

But it's no guarantee - I've set off a Category 2/3 avalanche on a supposedly skier-stabilised slope. Ironically, I was doing my BASI Mountain Safety course at the time and, whilst I was leading, the guide had spent 10 minutes at the top of the slope telling me why, being skier-stabilised, it would be safe - even though similar aspects were unstable.

yag_si_HS wrote:
And most of it seems to be very safe Very Happy
Everyone was doing the back country when I was there with the family.

Morale - nowhere is absolutely safe. Just because a slope didn't slide yesterday, or even this morning, then it doesn't mean that it won't slide.

Just because you can see it from the piste then it doesn't make it safe - have a look this photo of the Tufs sector in Tignes.

I'm going to paraphrase ski by saying that if you need to ask what the dangers are of skiing off-piste then you really do need a guide.
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