Minimum altitude: 1,110 meters
Distance: 12.4 km
Slope Aspect: East
Vertical Climbed: 355 meters (1,165 feet)
I'd wanted to do a return trip along the Herse early in the day (9am start) but the Herse had not been pisted from the Combe Noire junction (not enough snow depth and too hot apparently). I skied a bit of the Herse but the frozen tracks from the day before were not very pleasant although the climb back wasn't too bad. I decided to do a Combe Noire return (without doing the switchbacks of death) before skiing back the the car for 1 hour of skating. Not too bad in the end. Reports were that conditions were better mid morning once the snow surface had started to melt. As ever, it is all about timing.
Good skiing at 9am where the trail had been prepared on hard snow - need low temperature wax though. I skied down to the Col de Marcieu, the little link trail is quite technical but maybe a better bet than the Fontanettes as the first section had not been prepared.
