 Poster: A snowHead
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Having got so much out of this site thought I really should do a TR (sorry if a bit long)
Probably not of mainstream SH interest I'm afraid, but there are cross country and backcountry SHs - plus we did have a mini-disaster, which is always good to read about. And, it was cheap.
Resort : Vercors - a national park type thing south of Grenoble, we were in Correncon en Vercors, near Villard de Lans. The Vercors is a high plateau, a slice of the French countryside with added snow and mountains not a developed resort. Probably the friendliest people in rural France (and that's really saying something but I think they just sneak the prize). Tourism is a huge local industry but so is farming and forestry. It includes the famous Hauts Plateaux, France's biggest wilderness - a very large area of trees, trees, hills, trees, trees, clearings, more trees, you get the idea.
Author : Badpanda
Date 4 to 11 February 2012
Our holiday - two forty somethings, pretty experienced cross country skiiers and back-country types, on DH - happy on "nice" reds .
Website : All the resorts have websites. Usually with plans des pistes and how much is open. Just don't get me started on the Meteo France website, I don't want this to turn into a rant. If you are into Nordic Touring then you have to look at the Rando Nordique site. Under "topos" are loads of trip ideas. French only I think.
Basics : Flew Easyjet (about £70 each included bags) to Lyon; Lyon and Grenoble airports are only about 40 mins apart on the autoroute btw. Hired car via Car del Mar with the dreaded Advantage (lovely staff, but basically dodgy company; they said they can charge 15 Euros for cleaning which was asking for trouble. £130 for 8 days plus Lord know what extras, but they usually work out cheapest in the end). Drive 90 mins from airport to cottage. Just about one tank of petrol all week and 10 Euros toll each way.
Accommodation : it was cold (see below) We had booked (last minute so missed out on beloved previous gite) thru gites de france. After nice lunch, sorting gear and supermarket met Madame in car park to be told no hot water due to North wind having taken everything out, but could put us up in nearby gite. Eeeek. Lugged all stuff in, nearby gite OK but no dishwasher, well I mean, and it was cold. So armed with I Phone (plus the fact that I had looked at several other gites very recently) I spent a few hours getting numbers, burning broadband and ringing owners. Turned out we weren't the only ones to have no water. In fact the cold appeared to have caught everyone rather on the hop. (We remembered that there were very large numbers of cars on the roadsides with bonnets up... uh huh, diesel). And I thought it was just England that forgot it gets cold in winter.... everyone said it was utterly unprecedented, except we were there two years ago and it was -26C without windchill one night, but I was too polite to mention this. Just because it was hopelessly mild last year...
Anyway, I found another gite about 10 min away and a new and utterly charming elderly Madame took us in. In fact, although we lost a day, all turned out very well. The new place was great, big kitchen, open fire, nice sitting room (would have had mountain views but newly-formed glacier over skylight got in the way), two bedrooms and bathroom. Plus free jam! Madame gave us homemade jam (today), apples onions, sheets and wood. Ski from door both cross country and downhill. Also paid 280 Euros for six nights and Gite de France are happily reimbursing us the entire 400 Euros (plus booking fee) for the frozen gite (which did look very nice but was detached, which perhaps was the problem) - so we were ahead on the deal.
But it was stressful at the time esp as Mr BP was a bit peaky when we got there - a balance problem, not good for free-heel skiing. What is the moral? Not sure. Would we have been better with an organisation behind us? Well, only if we could contact them at the weekend. I had sorted it out by Sunday lunchtime myself. But it does rather discourage me from venturing outside France, where I sort of speak the language and sort of know how everything works. We had wondered about Austria but I'm not sure how I would have coped there. The general loveliness of the locals helped, we had lunch in a village restaurant got chatting and they offered us an appartement upstairs.
Back to the holiday.
The terrain :
1. Track cross country. Vercors has several superb domaines. Correncon has about 130km of beautiful woods and clearings, everything from little green pistes to a 30km Royale. Autrans has 130km including the marvellous Moliere ridge. I would recommend as follows, get to Nordic Centre soon after 8.30am, get bus tickets for 9am bus to La Sure. At La Sure take a chair lift and if you do not die of hypothermia you emerge onto tracks along the ridge with views of Grenoble, Mont Blanc and ample opportunity to argue about what mountain is what. Then you go off track to follow the ridge as it narrows. We have done this twice in skinny track skis without metal edges and it's very doable, esp as you probably don't want to lug metal edge skis around the track climbs. We wimped out of the descent (that's avalanche debris, that is - refuge man later said it was now concrete so was safe, I did wonder about slabs tho) so reversed the ridge which was just as beautiful in reverse. Then lots more track and a long long descent including a spell on a huge wide red downhill piste (big swooshy turns) back to Autrans for about 6pm. There are other domaines but we only had a week.
2. Back country. The Hauts Plateaux are amazing. We skied out from Correncon until we reached the turn around point for a day trip (YMMV). It was good powder but if you're a bit rubbish like us I would recommend keeping your skins on for the first big descent into the beautiful Dorbanouse clearing. The track was about a foot wide and deep and without skins I just kept sking into trees (eco-crime). With skins it was the best boardercross run I have ever done. Skin back up and take skins off for the fab descent back into Correncon. Of course, adjust this advice for your equipment, skill and the conditions. We had a short day on the Les Coulmes high woods, amazing powder and lots of tricky descents. There was just so much more...
3. Downhill, the conditions were so good we did not need to fix our heels once. From the door spent a day on the beginners DH slopes in the village. Had to talk the lift man into letting us use the lift (the runs were less steep than some of the descents we did on skinny skis and we were wearing metal edge skis, humph). Spent from 11am to 5pm just doing turn after turn on pistes and OP in powder. Did our technique a world of good, and I would heartily recommend this to anyone who like me tends to fall over when descending without your heel fixed.
But where was everyone? Some days we saw not a soul. Hauts plateaux, occasional meetings with fellow travellers mostly tugging pulkas, gosh, the French are hard. A few people at the weekend otherwise very quiet. The Correncon downhill area cleared out at 12pm (the holy lunchtime) and apart from one party briefly there was almost no-one there after that. Did not get to the Grand Domaine but whenever we looked we did not see many if anyone on the slopes. Perhaps the Vercors is just so big and has so much that it swallows everyone. Incidentally, the Vercors is French, very much so. Each time we heard exactly one other English voice all week. Not sure how much English is spoken but I think that most people with a little encouragement do speak some; they get some English tourists in summer.
The gear : Highly recommend Altiplano next to Intermarche between Villard and Lans, as above. Had several difft types of nordic touring skis allowing us to experiment and try to work out what to buy. Also hired everything else including complete touring packs, - Alpine and avvy gear. One weeks hire mixed touring and track was about 140 Euros for two.
The snow : Oh, the snow, the snow! Just fab. The Vercors has notoriously fickle winters but when it's good, it's very very good. Beautiful powder all around, except on east facing ridge slopes when it was windpacked and, according to the avvy forecast (3 all week), slabby. The cross country ski tracks were in marvellous condition. The back country was just bone dry powder everywhere (except for the occasional concrete as above). Our one day on Downhill slopes at about 1100 m was beautiful, powder between the runs, in fact powder in the garden, powder in the supermarket car park...
The weather : well, even Mr Badpanda (tee-shirt wearing Geordie) thought it was cold. Never got over -10C all week. Coldest day was -26C with windchill. Falling over in powder made me whimper. Chair-lift - it had an inch of snow on the seat. But weather was dry and beautiful. Either gentle snow, gentle sun, diamonds in the air or all three. Bit of wind (see slab problem above) but lots of trees to hide in so no problem.
The resort : Ended up in Correncon. Proper village, pretty. Just on the edge of the Hauts Plateaux so super-convenient. Also has huge beautiful cross country ski area and small DH village area and links into Villard de Lans DH grande domaine. End of the road so amazingly peaceful.
Food : Cross country skiiers don't do apres. We stare catatonically at the fire and obsess over maps and forecasts. Good Intermarche between Villard de Lans and Lans en Vercors (names are a bit unimaginative locally). Bakery and good butcher in Correncon.
Eating out - lunches only. The joy of France over Norway, you can afford to eat lunch! And have alcohol! Best place was Auberge I think d'Alieres, above Lans en Vercors, about 20 walk (you dont even need snowshoes) from Les Brevents parking. Also on DH and cross country and snowshoeing routes. Just asked them to take out the meat and I had one of the best veggie meals anywhere. They do fondue at lunch too, which must make for an interesting afternoon's skiing..Would be a beautiful spot for dinner.
God, I love a sit down lunch half way through a 30km ski. Auberge de Royban in the Correncon domaine and Refuge des Fenys in the Autrans domaine. Just hope you really like cheese...
Costs : See above. It was cheap. Skiing passes twice at about 8 Euros each, plus one chairlift ride plus 14 Euros for 11am DH lift pass.
Conclusion : Well, it's obviously not for you if you like the Three Valleys and wild apres. But it you want authentic France and unmatched free heel action, it's perfect. Only problem is the unreliability of snow. What we have done last three years is book flights well in advance . Then wait till about two weeks before and go to the Vercors if the snow is good (so far two out of three times). Last year we went to the Nevache instead which was also great.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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nice writeup.. sounds like a cool area. i've only ever driven past - maybe I should venture in one of these days
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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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Badpanda, what a fantastic report - a really good read,especially interesting for someone just venturing into XC. Thanks. 
Well done for sorting out the accommodation crisis. The fact that you'd booked through gites de France probably helped a lot with a refund.
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