Haute Maurienne

It should come as no surprise that the Haute Maurienne is rather lovely and has some cracking skiing. One valley south of the Tarentaise - Val d'Isere, Tignes and all that - and bordered by the magnificent Vanoise national park, it's bound to be good.

Bonneval, at the head of the valley, is the most intact example of an old stone-built village you could hope for. Some of the buildings have been superbly converted into very nice places to stay but don't plan on driving to the door unless you're travelling by donkey.

If cross country skiing is your thing, you could hardly improve on the 80km of trails around Bessans where you can also shoot stuff (it's a biathlon centre). But why bother with the valley floor when there's great access to big peaks and glaciers in every direction? The pictures show our climb to the 3356m Signal du Grand Mont Cenis, followed by the descent - wild glacier, cliffy gullies and then open meadows - which brings you neatly back into the ski domaine and back to base after 1800 vertical metres of excellent skiing, and not another soul: we didn't cross another ski track all day. Also good were a couple of routes from Bonneval - a slightly hairy entrance into the Vallonet after booting up from the top chairlift, and the traverse across les Cordettes - an immense open snowfield - followed by the descent following the Andagne stream down to the valley floor. 

Back down the valley, starting from the resort of Aussois, is the classic descent from the Col des Hauts on the southern shoulder of the Pointe de Bellecote, down into the valley of the Ruisseau de Bonne Nuit. It would certainly be 'good night', forever, if you were caught in one of the monstrous avalanches which thunder down this stream bed. If it's safe to do so, you can ski right down towards Termignon, but when it's not feasible you can cut round through the forest and out onto a track back to the road. Whichever way you go, it's an amazing descent in return for just about 500m of booting or skinning. For guiding throughout the valley, Regis Burnel is your man. 

Just down the road...

How much great skiing can you have on your doorstep before it gets just plain greedy? Within an hour and a bit by road, there's all of the following, though I don't think it looks like this anymore since temperatures went up by about 20 degrees and the monsoon set in. Still, thanks for the memories. 

And in case you want to check them out for next season, we skied Belalp, Lauchernalp, Anzère and Bruson and posted about it here in the TimesOnline.

Smile for the camera

Had a great week with family and friends. Mega ski photographer Mark Junak came to stay and very kindly took a few pictures (including those below) while we showed him the area. All photos: Mark Junak www.snowimages.co.uk

All photos: Mark Junak www.snowimages.co.uk

New Zinal chalet

Hot off the press: the beautiful 8 bed Chalet Yayla in Zinal, recently built by friends of ours, is being made available to rent, self-catered. Here are a few pictures, with more to come soon on www.skizinal.com

For now if you're interested in renting it, just contact us: contact@skizinal.com

Happy new year

When full moon coincides with new year's eve in Zinal, the place to be is on the 'plat', the flood plain above the village, with the moonlight reflected off the mountains making it bright enough to see colours by. Sledging, hot punch, toasted marshmallows and a roaring fire followed by Chinese lanterns drifting skywards against a backdrop of fireworks over the village.

Our lovely Christmas guests cunningly arranged a very early start home today, allowing us to hit the first lift in Zinal. Lots of great snow and a chance to try the Scott Stunt skis which are of approximately waterski dimensions and go like the clappers. Very nice but I think I'm more of a Pure-ist (see below) for anything other than super-deep untracked snow. Mind you, it's just started snowing again, so who knows...

Fat Christmas

Finally getting a chance to work my way through the new Scott skis in our rack since our Christmas guests are not real freeride material:

Crusairs - as light as you could hope for and incredibly helpful in dodgy snow, even breakable crust; they turn for themselves which takes a bit of getting used to.
Punishers - match my cold weather outfit really well (an orange theme) and they go very nicely, though I'm not really a twin-tip sort of person, generally aiming not to go backwards or to get airbourne without very good reason.
Pures - four hours hooning round the mountain in shin-deep fresh snow and heavy chop on the way down to Zinal (there's more snow than average above about 2000m here but recent warm temps have left it less good down below) was more fun than should be allowed; a much easier ride than expected, and neutral balance that never put me in the back seat. Guests will have to be very persuasive to make me hand over these ones. But if I'm going to ride them all day, I'll need to get some bigger thigh muscles from somewhere.

It snowed overnight and like crazy today - complete whiteout - so it could be perfect super-deep conditions to try the Stunts tomorrow. Quite excited? Just a bit.