From the Recoin (Chamrousse 1650m) climb to the top of the ski pistes (Croix de Chamrousse). You can generally avoid most of the ski open ski runs. Descend the run to the lac Robert.

The overnight rain hadn't done too much damage. The ski pistes were in good condition having been bashed overnight. The road up to Charmant-Som was hard with a lot of debris over the first km.

Located at altitude 4.5 km from Lans en Vercors itself on the Allières in a "hidden valley" there are three circuits, a red, a blue and a green.

Classic ski tour when it is high risk in the mountains. The day started at 9am with 400 vertical meters of trail breaking in snow up to my knees and at times much higher.

Low cloud was clagging up the valley but a quick check of the les 7 Laux webcams revealed sun from somewhere around 1800 meters. I spoke to Mike who'd wanted to go to the Belle Etoile.

The nordic ski area extends over an altitude from 1400 to 1500 meters. There are 22km of runs for nordic skiing plus marked snow shoe trails.

Despite three snow episodes (dumps as they are called on the anglo fora) over the last week the conditions are not great and a couple of days of foehn could wipe out any gains.

A little afternoon tour to test the fresh snow and gear. There is no base in the snow pack below 1700 meters but still some rocks below 1900 meters.

Direct climb to the Superga from Turin in 25m53, a long way from Thibot Pinot's race winning time of 13m38 and he'd ridden from Milan! The climb is 450 meters at 9% with a couple of ramps en-route.

The climb to St Jean le Vieux starts in Domene. It is a 500 meter climb at and average 9% over 5.8km with a few ramps and flats en-route. At about 3.