Thursday 18 March 2010

Serre Chevalier 6th to 13th March 2010

Skiing can really be a drag sometimes......Peyra-Juana cafe tucked away off the beaten track round the back of Monetier is what its all about.

I did a week in Serre Che this time last year, and found it a really good ski area, so headed back with 4 other friends and Mrs H to sample the area once again, and introduce my buddies to a place I found really very interesting.

Serre Che is essentially 4 resorts along the valley up towards the Col de Lauteret, starting with Briancon, France's highest town and going up to Monetier-les-bains at 1500m. We stayed in Villeneuve, a lovely old rustic village with a small river running through the heart of the old town, where our chalet was situated. There are plenty of little bars and restaurants clining on to the edges of the river, lovely on a sunny spring day. Its got a good choice of places to eat and have a beer, without being lively or pretentious. Its just got a really nice vibe to it.

Our chalet was a short 2 minute walk from the supermarket, bars and commercial centre over the road, and a couple of minutes further on were the Frejus bubble and Pontillas gondola, both old but reliable lifts to take you up to the mid stations on the mountain. Not once did we see a queue at the bottom, and we were on first lift 4 out of 6 mornings as well.

However, with a ski bus stop right outside the front door, we managed to avoid the short walk in ski boots and carrying planks, although we did manage a few walks back after finishing the afternoon in Bar LaGrotte with a Kronenburg.
The flights were on time, transfers were good, and we arrived as night fell to a cold buffet in the chalet and welcome glass of bubbly. We decided to have a wander into the village, get acclimatised to the cold (and it was damned cold too, around minus 10 that night), and go for a beer, or two, or three.......

Day 1 of skiing - Sunday, and we awoke to cloudy skies, but bonus - fresh snow falling right down to valley level. Whilst this meant reduced visability, we knew full well that up top it would be fresh snow to get into. 4 of the 6 of us headed up the Pontillas lift. The other 2 went to the bunny slopes as one of them is a total novice and doesn't do heights too well. My other 2 buddies, Stu and Z, headed up with us. Both are beginners and have only done a week or so before, and I wanted them to play on the lovely green slopes up at the top of the Villeneuve sector, above 2000m. There's a series of green and blue runs up here, with some long drag lifts. The snow was bang on - about 10cm of fresh on top of the groomed pistes. We spent the morning warming up on the long Barres run, before I decided to get S&Z around to see the ski area.


The snow fell all day, but the sun was not far from poking through the clouds. It was cold though, unusual for this time of year. We got S&Z up to the top of the Grand Serre chair, but the wind had got up and was blowing fresh snow all over, and viz went down to nothing at times, so after S&Z crashed into each other, we headed down for lunch.

Ali and me skied long into the afternoon, exploring around the Chantmerle sector.

There are lovely long reds around here, quite steep in places but really really wide. Great for confident intermediates and speed freaks. I had been looking to get over to the Aiguillette lift, tucked away beneath the Prorel peak which leads over to Briancon, and we found to our delight 2 wonderful deserted long pistes, and had a blast down here for an hour or so, before heading off at 4pm to meet the others for a well deserved beer.

Here is the view looking down the Frejus bubble into Villeneuve, and you can see how much snow is on the ground right down in the valley. Conditions remained cold enough all week for the snow to stay, although the roads were cleared by Monday.



Day 2, Monday, and its absoloutely freezing this morning, but the good news is the sun is up, the sky is blue, and its going to be a great ski day. Ali and me headed up Pontillas again, as I wanted to have a crack at the black itinerary under the Balme chair, and thats exactly where we started. Its a steep almost off piste run, no grooming, and a good test of how good your legs are, especially first thing. Ali wasn't too keen to start with and did a lot of "why did you bring me up here?" but 5 minutes in and she was giggling like a school girl and bombing down to the bottom making fresh tracks.


We had a busy morning, headed over to the Chantmerle sector, and even up to the top of Prorel before skiing back down to Aravet midpoint for a nice lunch, albeit quite expensive. Typical France.
My buddy Steve spent the afternoon with us, and we took him over to the Aiguillette runs, which he absolutely loved, and we couldn't believe how empty they were. There were a few people skiing the trees on hard moguls underneath the lift, making it look easy. Not for me, thanks.

Conditions were perfect - very cold (minus 11) but clear skies and bright sun. This is the top of the Grand Serre chair, very different from 24 hours earlier, and from here you can see right across the whole area, both sides of the Serre Chevalier peak at 2491m.

Tuesday was a flat light day, and much harder to ski. It was also a fair bit colder, minus 17 at the foot of the Clot Gauthier chair and boy could you feel it once on the chair. We did the Casse du Boeuf black from top to bottom as it had plenty of good snow on it early, and yet again was practically deserted. It was a nice grippy fast black, plenty of width on in case you made a mistake, and I found myself pushing to go faster and faster all the time. Ali kept telling me I was mental, and that she couldn't keep up!

The Neo's were behaving brilliantly - just what I had expected. Grippy on piste, fairly decent edge to edge, but particularly great in the thicker snow and off piste. Just the right length too at 166, glad I didn't go go for the 176's as these babies have a really sharp turning radius.





The rest of the week, it was sun sun sun, and it warmed up considerably during the day as well. We were able to sit out without jackets for a while, eating lunch al fresco a couple of times, and temperatures climbed to 5 or 6 above at some points in the strong afternoon sun. However, it got cold again at night with clear skies, and the snow was able to remain in perfect condition.

We had a couple of trips over the top into the Monetier sector. Firstly with Steve, when the afternoon light went, and we only did a few runs, had a coffee, and headed back over. There were however cracking views to be had from the highest point of the whole ski area when we want back and nailed some cracking off piste off the top of Yret and Cibout.



This is looking down from the black Col du Vent run, which starts with a mogul field, but where I found myself continuously heading away from the bumps and into the lovely fresh snow and untracked areas.





One of the best runs in the area is the fantastic long and fast red "Cucumelle". It blasts its way down from the peak at 2700m between Villeneuve and Monetier and we again found it to be blissfully empty, so we really opened up and had some fun on here, pulling in some great carving turns and pushing the skis to their limits. I thought I was going way too fast at times, but thats kind of what its all about these days, going to the limit. Here is the Cucumelle viewed from across the valley at Frejus:


One of the great things about Serre Che is, whilst right at its highest points it is open and quite exposed, there are a lot of trees high up. This only adds to the beauty of the place, and also offers some protection when the weather socks in. Skiing through the trees definitely adds to the ambience of the place.


Up at the Cucumelle peak, we came across a number of skiers and boarders who were more than happy to strap their gear to their back packs, and make the long 45 minute climb up to the highest point, where the rush of making fresh tracks through the lovely soft powder proved too irresistable. We watched a number of them come down, looking graceful and flashing snow tails behind them in the knee deep powder. Personally, I didn't fancy the hike up, but we did have plenty of good off piste fun at other points.














Here are some more pics showing how good the snow was, and where fresh lines could regularly be found:

















Briancon side was somewhere we never got over to last year, and we spend a day blasting the slopes over here. It tends to get more sun that the other areas due to its more southerly facing slopes, and there are some cracking wide open reds and blues at the top section. We had a play on the off piste here too which was lovely and soft, and also in the massive natural half pipe which must be over a mile long.

We also headed down to the bottom of the fantastic Remparts red, which is where the Prorel lift out of town comes up, and you have to get onto the next section back up to the top. Its tree lined and a wicked cruise all the way down, with some nice steep sections interspersed. We managed to cover off most of what he hadn't seen last year, and found this side surprisingly good, and with plenty to go at as well. We had our last afternoon over here, and really started messing about with jumps, bumps and off piste fun. The run back to Aravet was long and tiring, and we decided to finish the week on the black back down to LaGrotte bar, followed of course by a couple of beers whilst the evening sun faded away over the peaks.
Its amazing how much people relax with a drink of two inside them:















Here is the Casse du Boeuf black as seen from the balcony of our chalet, a cracking way to finish any day, and in particular another brilliant weeks skiing.














I have done Serre Che twice now, so I don't think I will return for another week just yet, as there is plenty more out there to go at, but its a place I have come to love - definitely not your usual ugly French high altitude purpose built monstrosity, but a cutesy old rustic place with a great range of tree and high altitude skiing to conquer, a slightly more chilled feel to it, and some life after 6pm to boot!

Get yourself over there, if you haven't been before. Its a place that will soon really take off, once they finally invest in some faster lifts.