jamesdeluxe
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
After the previous day at Megève, which felt at times like a visit to the Scottish Highlands, I drove 90 minutes south to the village of Avrieux at the entrance of the Haute Maurienne region. It rained most of the night and cleared up by morning so I decided that the above-treeline locals ski area at the end of the valley, Bonneval sur Arc, would be the right call for the day. I left at 8 am for a scenic 40-minute drive.
Before arriving in Bonneval, I drove through the village of Bessans, where you can access a popular and extensive x-c skiing network. From the road, I must've seen a couple hundred people out and about on the groomed trails and was a bit jealous. I really look forward to getting back on the nordic horse when I move to the mountains in the next few years.
Photo: Alban Pernet
The outskirts of Bonneval sur Arc, a small traditional village in a box canyon, which gives it an edge-of-the-world feeling:
From the top, it's 3,800 continuous verts to the base; however, most of the time you either ski on the upper or lower half. Today, it was far better to be on the upper half, which got a foot of snow overnight:
There was a light cloud layer first thing, which cleared up by 10 am.
This trail connects the upper and lower mountains. A local mentioned that just behind that peak straight ahead was the famous resort of Val d'Isère, only 2.5 miles as the crow flies but more than three hours by car. Take a look at the arrow I drew on the right of the pic, which I'll explain below:
As always at old-school ski areas in France: Poma platters. These must be closing in on 60 years of service. Built to last!
I love the 1960s Jetsons-style screen that tells you when to pull the pole. I don't recall seeing them anywhere but in France. This one was comparatively gentle, with no brutal slingshot effect.
While they were trying to get the summit sector open, I lapped the six inches of new snow mid-mountain:
Under the chair, it was just dense enough to keep you from punching through to the boilerplate underneath so I skied this section several times:
The rain/snow line from overnight was right where that group of people are standing. At that exact point, conditions went from soft to crunchy.
Going back an hour later to the photo above with the arrow -- about five minutes before I got here, the entire slope slid due to the new snow falling on a rock-hard base after a month-long drought. What's odd is that there are Gasex avy cannons several hundred feet above, but apparently they decided not to use them before opening the trail! Tiptoeing over the debris was a good reminder of how quickly it hardens in place and confirmed that being buried under snow would definitely be in the Top 3 ways I don't want to die.
A few minutes later, one of the grooming team arrived in a snowmobile, calmly shoveled a small pathway on the left for people to ski through, which was then followed by a snowcat that quickly groomed it out. No drama, no closing the sector for continued avy work, nuthin -- imagine the PR CYA if that had happened at a U.S. ski area!
Later that afternoon, you can see the far edge of the slide on the right and that people had put down tracks above it -- the ski area didn't even bother to rope off the slope! I guess that's why we use the French term "laissez-faire."
After they opened the upper mountain, I ended up with a local who showed me lots of low-hanging calf-deep fruit at the summit. He skied really fast and didn't want to wait around for me to take pix so I obliged.
I finished with a mid-afternoon lunch in the cute village, where I ordered the classic Savoie winter main dish, tartiflette:
I was grateful for the bluebird day as another storm system was arriving that evening, with whiteout conditions forecast for the next two days.
Before arriving in Bonneval, I drove through the village of Bessans, where you can access a popular and extensive x-c skiing network. From the road, I must've seen a couple hundred people out and about on the groomed trails and was a bit jealous. I really look forward to getting back on the nordic horse when I move to the mountains in the next few years.
Photo: Alban Pernet
The outskirts of Bonneval sur Arc, a small traditional village in a box canyon, which gives it an edge-of-the-world feeling:
From the top, it's 3,800 continuous verts to the base; however, most of the time you either ski on the upper or lower half. Today, it was far better to be on the upper half, which got a foot of snow overnight:
There was a light cloud layer first thing, which cleared up by 10 am.
This trail connects the upper and lower mountains. A local mentioned that just behind that peak straight ahead was the famous resort of Val d'Isère, only 2.5 miles as the crow flies but more than three hours by car. Take a look at the arrow I drew on the right of the pic, which I'll explain below:
As always at old-school ski areas in France: Poma platters. These must be closing in on 60 years of service. Built to last!
I love the 1960s Jetsons-style screen that tells you when to pull the pole. I don't recall seeing them anywhere but in France. This one was comparatively gentle, with no brutal slingshot effect.
While they were trying to get the summit sector open, I lapped the six inches of new snow mid-mountain:
Under the chair, it was just dense enough to keep you from punching through to the boilerplate underneath so I skied this section several times:
The rain/snow line from overnight was right where that group of people are standing. At that exact point, conditions went from soft to crunchy.
Going back an hour later to the photo above with the arrow -- about five minutes before I got here, the entire slope slid due to the new snow falling on a rock-hard base after a month-long drought. What's odd is that there are Gasex avy cannons several hundred feet above, but apparently they decided not to use them before opening the trail! Tiptoeing over the debris was a good reminder of how quickly it hardens in place and confirmed that being buried under snow would definitely be in the Top 3 ways I don't want to die.
A few minutes later, one of the grooming team arrived in a snowmobile, calmly shoveled a small pathway on the left for people to ski through, which was then followed by a snowcat that quickly groomed it out. No drama, no closing the sector for continued avy work, nuthin -- imagine the PR CYA if that had happened at a U.S. ski area!
Later that afternoon, you can see the far edge of the slide on the right and that people had put down tracks above it -- the ski area didn't even bother to rope off the slope! I guess that's why we use the French term "laissez-faire."
After they opened the upper mountain, I ended up with a local who showed me lots of low-hanging calf-deep fruit at the summit. He skied really fast and didn't want to wait around for me to take pix so I obliged.
I finished with a mid-afternoon lunch in the cute village, where I ordered the classic Savoie winter main dish, tartiflette:
I was grateful for the bluebird day as another storm system was arriving that evening, with whiteout conditions forecast for the next two days.
