Vanoise Ski Touring

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CathS
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Vanoise Ski Touring

Post by CathS »

I've just got back from a fantastic week learning how to ski tour with Snoworks in the Vanoise area of the French Alps. Some photos and a few video clips (all taken by others) here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hu4Nk56d5RrYEnq03

Based in Brides les Bains, we visited the 3 Valleys, Valmorel, La Plagne and the Vanoise National Park in Pralognan. After a brief warm-up day, we launched straight into some big mountain adventures - all far more exciting than I imagined it would be. The highlights for me were a traverse of the Roc du Becoin and Mont Jovet above La Plagne, with lovely powder snow, and an epic and tough descent of the Glacier de Gebroulaz above Val Thorens.

There was a lot of 'experiential learning' involved! But I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to go uphill on skis. Being a climber/mountaineer certainly helped for the more challenging ascents - although I did get picked to demonstrate how to do kick turns with ski crampons on a 55 degree slope, which was definitely Type 2 fun :shock:

I also learnt that skiers are happy to clamber up things with ski poles where mountaineers would use an ice axe...

And we skied almost every different type of snow known to humanity.

The door has been opened to a whole new world of adventure in the mountains 8)
norbert
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Re: Vanoise Ski Touring

Post by norbert »

Fantastic pics Cath,
looks like you had a great time.
I may be heading out to Pralognan again this summer - it is a lovely place in the summer and it looks brilliant in the snow!
Thanks for posting!
CathS
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Re: Vanoise Ski Touring

Post by CathS »

Yes, Pralognan was a lovely place, and the scenery was very dramatic. We didn't really ski in the resort (just paid 9 Euros for a single ride up on the first two lifts, and then down a couple of the runs back down to the road at the end of the day), but looked like a nice little ski area, with some decent looking long runs higher up.

Thank you for introducing me to skiing in the first place! What a wonderful gift it has been :D
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JR
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Re: Vanoise Ski Touring

Post by JR »

Properly ace :-D

Don't think you could have picked a better week for it.

Probably saw your skinning tracks off the tops in La Plagne as that's where I was last week too (a normal 'resort' type trip - though it does have a fair number of rather challenging unpisted runs which provided variable levels of fun!) I'm off to Gressoney for some off piste stuff (which may involve abseiling to access at times!) in March.

JR.
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