Can you help me to find skitouring routes or daytrips in Valfrejus resort?
I am going to spend week in here in O3/2011, accomodated straight in Valfrejus. I am looking for day-trip, ascents and off-piste descents in easy-mid category.
As i am from SVK, i have a little trouble browsing and googling french webs and guides. Kindly asking for some links, web pages or book-guides for this area.
(possible in FR,GE,EN languages).

Off piste and day tours in Valfreujus are well covered in Patrick Cols excellent guidebook ‘Guide blanc de la Maurienne’ The guidebook is easy to use in any language and can be found in newsagents of the region. You will find plenty to go at and the off piste relativly quiet. The othere nearby stations are well worth a visit and if I remember correctly all covered on the same ticket (you could go to La Norma for the afternoon) but check there. Being French the book does not have an ISBN no.

Valfrejus has lots of ski touring nearby. So far I’ve only done Pointe des Sarrasins last March. I read about it in the Olizane guidebook (in French) for ski randonnee Savoie.

I was not staying or skiing at Valfrejus, just drove up one morning, parked and starting heading up the GR 5. After about half an hour of quietness, I discovered that in winter it is actively used as a ski piste. (So if you have a week lift pass at Valfrejus, might save you some time getting to some tours).

My guess is the main problem you’re having in finding info is that ski touring desciptions and reports are typically indexed by the name of the summit and aspect—and you don’t yet know which summits are in which of these categories: (a) peaks in the same region, but not reachable by Valfrejus as a daytrip; (b) peaks near Valfrejus that have a lift to (or near) the top; (c) peaks + ridges within daytrip range which do not have a lift.

So it will help a lot to just order a paper map (or a digital map, like the IGN 1:25000 maps for that region are available on DVD). The ski touring region containing Valfrejus is often Thabor - Cerces - Mt Cenis. My perspective is that I wish I’d done more tours in around there (and in the nearby Haute Maurienne)—and I own the Guide Blanc—but in reality I almost always end up doing some other good tour closer to the population centers. (so finally I gave up on bringing the Guide Blanc with me on the airplane to France—rely on the Olizane guide and usual websites instead).

Next it will help to learn some French. Lots of popular ski stations have English-language guidebooks for skiing off-piste. Valfrejus is not one of those. Maybe that’s why you chose it?

For ski touring, there are now some detailed English-language guidebooks for two regions closest to the Geneva airport. Hint: Valfrejus is nowhere near these regions.

I predict it will be a long time until there’s much info in English about ski touring around Valfrejus. One of the most popular French ski guidebook does not yet even have tours for that area in French.
. (Mt Thabor is a known goal for English-speaking ski tourers, but as a multi-day trip, and that’s in one of the English language guidebooks)

My feeling is that you’ve chosen a good location for less-crowded ski touring, and chosen a good time go there for ski touring. Now you just need to take the next step of getting a map and some guidebooks—and learning to read French.

Ken

A second vote for Col’s Guide Blanc. He covers all the off piste in every Maurienne resort in some detail. As Ken say’s combine that with a 1:25000 series map and the world is your oyster.

http://www.geoportail.fr/ - search for Modane and turn off the photos and turn on the 1:25000 series maps and you will see all the touring routes from the station in blue. That gives you a week’s worth of touring without really trying. With a lift pass you will be able to zap some of the long approach treks.

Here is a list to keep you going:-

http://www.skitour.fr/departs/valfrejus,135.html

The situation is that we are going to spend in Valfrejus regular ski holiday, in group of 15 ppl. Only me and girlfriend are climbers and now two years on randone/tour skis. Therefor i am looking for some hints what to do there. This was my first skiing in France, but i hope not the last one.

Now i have ordered IGN map for this region, to check the terrain and also the “Guide blanc de la Maurienne”. I think this will be enough for this time, more informations i will find in Valfrejous or in local shops/info.

davidof - 14 December 2010 05:54 PM

Here is a list to keep you going:-
http://www.skitour.fr/departs/valfrejus,135.html

Yes that list looks fairly complete. The Ski de Randonnee Savoie (Editions Olizane) guidebook by Emmanual Cabau (of Grenoble) has a couple of significant variations not mentioned on that list. (And that list has a couple not in that guidebook, but they largely agree.)

Does the Guide Blanc include all those routes + variations?

davidof - 14 December 2010 05:54 PM

http://www.geoportail.fr/ - search for Modane and turn off the photos and turn on the 1:25000 series maps and you will see all the touring routes from the station in blue.

That’s a resource I hadn’t known about—Thanks. So the IGN 1:25000 maps can be accessed online.

But note that the list above (and the Cabau guidebook) have several ski routes + variations which are not on the IGN 1:25000 map. Like almost none of the Pointe des Sarrasins tour in the Cabau guidebook is shown on the IGN map.
(also, my advice based on using the IGN ski route lines in other regions: Do not assume that each ski line has been carefully + accurately drawn.)

Ken

Michail - 14 December 2010 06:03 PM

Only me and girlfriend are climbers and now two years on randone/tour skis. Therefor i am looking for some hints what to do there. This was my first skiing in France, but i hope not the last one.

Keep in mind that the ski touring around there is different from lots of touring in France. Like you’re much more likely to need to break trail climbing up in untracked snow around there. For future trips to France: If you really want to grab the best ski touring on a particular day, it usually helps to have a rental car with snow tires.

Avalanche:
I think that Valfrejus is covered under “Haute Maurienne” in the official avalanche forecsst thru MeteoFrance (worth reading in detail, worth learning some more French words, not just checking “the number").

A couple of concerns about the Valfrejus area:
(1) it’s close to the “frontier” mountain ridge between Italy and France. So strong winds from the south or east could hit the tops of that ridge without much obstruction—then form dangerous slabs on the Valfrejus side.
Also the frontier ridge sometimes has deeper snow (good!) than other areas because of the lifting of moist air from the Mediterranean Sea—and sometimes bad visibility as the day progresses, for the same reason.

(2) Since many of the best skiing slopes around Valfrejus face roughly north, slabs and weak layers can stay around for many days. This can be a tough problem when you’re confined to one area for the whole week—after you’ve skied the obvious lines with safer aspect: On each new day to refuse to ski all those tempting powder slopes.

By waiting until March, you’ve allowed more time for warmer weather to reduce dangerous conditions—so hopefully you’ll instead have a great week with lots of safe touring options.

Another alternative for high-avalanche days is to get transportation to Bessans (higher up the Maurienne valley) and rent equipment for the fun network of groomed cross-country trails ("ski de fond") - larger network, more fun design, more reliable snow than most of the other cross-country ski trails in the Maurienne (or in all of France for that matter). Some of us like skiing (or just walking) by the old stone houses of the village of Bessans. (Higher up driving the main road is Bonneval-sur-Arc, the oldest mountain village in France).

Ken

@KenR: thanks a lot for all advices.
As i have said before, we are starters with no much experiences. But i have passed few avalanche camps and trainings, so i hope i can judge the local conditions in there and avoid danger. Avalanche equipement like showel, probe and pieps is matter of course, also the pick and crampoons (maybe harness and rope).
I have checked the 1:25000 IGN online map, first time seen the map of valley, so i can see the possibilities there. Maybe one day trip to Mt.Thabor refuge, or stay one night there and go back. Or just and at the top of ski-lifts and continue to the cols or tops around (Col du Frejus, Punta Bana, Punta Nera). I will see in there what is suitable according to local conditions. I suppose we will stay on the N, NW slopes.

The local french info is not a problem, my GF speaks French.

@davidof: http://www.geoportail.fr is exactly what i was looking for, best for planning forward. Thanks for this.

Sorry I forgot to say you might need the maps at the start, seemed obvious to me. The map you need is IGN 3535OT Top 25 and you can buy it online from http://www.ign.fr/

As Ken has said it is an easy passage for the wind from the Maurienne to the Susa Valley and often the tops and ridges are completly clear of snow. For the avalanche provision you are right on the border of the department, Thabor is covered from the south by the forecast from Briancon.

The trouble with sites like skitour.fr is that you find the route up Thabor goes up the north couloir, well it does not! The ‘correct’ route is shown on the IGN map. There are rather more tours described in Le guide blanc than in the Olizane guidebook which as the title indicates covers the whole of Savoie region. 

Murray

Well, the IGN 3535OT and Le guide blanc are on the way to me now.
1:25000 is enough to read the terrain. Anyway informations like the wind movements , snow a and local conditions are always handy.

Its a bit hard for me to plan something in forward, far away 1000km in different climatic area. Many thanks from Slovakia, keep writing.