Thu, 21 March 2019
Minimum altitude: 1,130 meters
Distance: 25.6 km
Slope Aspect: North-East
Vertical Climbed: 680 meters (2,231 feet)
General Description
Bois Barbu (Villard du Lans) is linked with Herbouilly and Corrençon in the Vercors. Together they constitute the three access points of the Haut Vercors nordic ski area. There are a total of 153km of cross country ski runs prepared for skating and classic styles.
The pistes have numerous refuge to eat lunch and stop for a snack. You can climb to viewpoints over the surrounding mountains. Ski past grottos and shrines. Skiing is generally wooded and climbs mostly reasonable.
Trip Report
The plan was to follow as much of the long "Royale" piste as possible in a long tour. However the Herbouilly pistes were closed to I climbed to the plateau Julien then follow a long piste through the woods south as far as I could ski before descending to Correncon. Because the descents were a bit slow due to the snow conditions I had the impression of doing a lot of climbing and was pretty flaked when I got back to Bois Barbu.
Hard snow in the morning at 10am, excellent skating conditions. Snow
softnened on sunny south and east facing slopes around midday but
remained hard in the shade of the woods. In the Correncon sector the
snow was icy in the morning and still hard with good skating around
midday despite being in the sun. The descent back to Bois Barbu was a
bit slow. Piste preparation was good. The site is on "free access" next week with limited preparation.
