Off-Piste mountain skills session in Chamonix

Once over the back, we enjoyed a lovely run down Les Esserts through the forest on mostly untouched corduroy. The pistes are groomed to perfection at the moment and the low temperatures are keeping them crisp and dry. We headed to the top of the Tete de Balme chairlift, from where we cut across the top of the Belle Place piste and ducked under the rope to traverse skiers’ right into the off-piste terrain. We split into two groups, ours lead by Ulrika and the other by Isabelle, with Rachel zipping back and forth to give pointers on technique.

Our first challenge was putting in a couple of steep turns on soft but chopped up powder to get to the more forgiving terrain further down. My off-piste skills have never been particularly graceful but Rachel deserves much credit for not howling with laughter at my blundering attempts. A few well explained tips later though and I was tackling the same descent feeling much more confident and well-balanced. Possibly not much more graceful but definitely stronger.

Ulrika’s passion for finding the best snow combined with Rachel’s encouragement allowed us to venture further into the forest, discovering pockets of fresh powder in untouched clearings amongst the trees - an unheard of phenomenon in Chamonix where practically everything gets tracked out within hours of a snowfall!

We practised our turns and finding our centre of balance on as many types of terrain as possible - wide steep slopes, narrow winding trails, shallow fields, tree runs - until we were all feeling much happier at being out of our usual comfort zones and more confident in challenging our usual bad habits. The snow was varied - Ulrika did herself proud in finding us plenty of soft fluffy stuff but the higher terrain was pretty wind-blown and the more exposed snow was becoming heavy - all good for practising on and becoming stronger skiers!

Once our legs were beginning to feel the burn it was time to give them a rest and practise our avalanche safety skills. Ulrika took us to a clearing where the snow was soft and deep, buried an avalanche transceiver somewhere unbeknownst to us, and then taught us how to locate it using our transceivers. For most of us, it wasn’t the first time that we had done transceiver training but we were definitely all in need of a refresher. The more transceiver practise, the better!

The session flew by and the conditions were so much fun that no one even suggested the obligatory coffee break. After four hours of more-or-less non-stop skiing, we headed back down the front side of Le Tour on weary legs, cutting between the groomed runs to get some last off-piste practise turns in before we finished. The sun was by now out in full force, softening the snow slightly to make a nice landing for my frequent tumbles.

Except for the odd windblown patch on top, everything up at Le Tour is now really nicely covered and the snow depth is well over a metre. The weather forecast for the weekend predicts more blue skies and sunshine, perfect for a morning ski before tucking into your Christmas dinner. If such glorious conditions prevail then I reckon that most of the locals will have had more days up the hill before Christmas than they managed during the whole of last winter!