Hi,

Looking to go ski touring for a week the first week in May. We want to camp and do different day tours, but also be near a nice town for the evenings etc.

We were thinking serre chevalier might be a good bet. Anyone got any feedback or ideas - where to stay, what routes/valleys to go to, whether serre cheval or somewhere else. Where is best in such late season?

We want to avoid glacial terrain, but keen to get some good long routes in. We can ski most terrain..

thanks for any input!

MBAlex - 21 April 2012 11:30 AM

We want to avoid glacial terrain, but keen to get some good long routes in.

Difficult to imagine there will be much touring around there in May which does not include glacier travel. Especially anything like a “long” route.

(Indeed difficult to imagine much non-glacier touring anywhere in European Alps in May this year. But the Serre Chevalier area received significantly less non-glacial snow this year than some other regions.)

Ken

P.S. Be careful about saying things like “ski most terrain” in close connection with areas like the northeast Ecrins / Pelvoux.

hi concur w kenr. it has actually snowed a bunch to ca. 1700m in the last week, - generally low freezing level. there would be some non glacial 1 day touring in decent nick from the col du lauteret - however the fl 4cast to rise soon and the base is thin, so it might not be skinnable from the col by 2 weeks time.  In addition , serre che ( or rather the individual small centres like monetier, chantermerle) will be dead by then.  U could use Briancon as a base - then you could easily access the col d L, Ecrin, Val claret, Montgenevre, etc. Im sure you,ll get some stuff done but you will be scratching around, esp if you are not familiar with the area.

If i were u its a no brainer.  get a flight to Tromso North Norway and hire a rent-a-wreck.no, stay in youth hostel. ski mountains on sight. party in tromso at night.

A

The CamptoCamp.org website has a search by date and area function which is useful for seeing what people have done at the same time in previous years, here is 2010 for the Ecrins

http://www.camptocamp.org/outings/list/areas/14403/act/1/date/20100426~20100626/orderby/onam/order/asc/page/2

as Ken says not a lot of non-glacial skiing on that list and here for the Cerces

http://www.camptocamp.org/outings/list/areas/252522/act/1/date/20100426~20100626

that said, the C2C folks are not that active in the area. You can do the same kind of search with skitour

http://www.skitour.fr/topos/recherche.php

You should be able to ski stuff from Bonnenuit - North face of the Galibier, Eveches, Cerces, Galibier (if the tunnel / pass is open by the time you travel). Stuff from the Lauteret may also be possible, the Combneynots, maybe Mt Chaberton near to Montgenevre (get in there quick, they are building ski lifts all over it soon). Col d’Izoard maybe

There has been quite a lot of snow recently. You can still tour in low lying ranges such as the Chartreuse but it is getting much warmer again, there is a foehn wind of a force I’ve rarely seen blowing so expect the snow line to move up to the 1800m mark quite rapidly.