La Grave Skiing

Some photos from my recent long weekend in La Grave. A fun trip with skiing in the sun, on grass and then in powder. We left just as a monster snow fall was in progress. That’s the way it goes with skiing sometimes I guess (even in February).

It had been a warm winter in the Alps. On my first afternoon in France I went cross country skiing at Bois Barbu in the Vercors. The lack of snow meant I had to leave the relative safety of the green run (basically the road) and venture onto the blues.

For me, blue runs on cross country skis make me feel like I am a beginner skier again… worse, this time I rented skating skis which are harder to handle than classic Nordic skis. Still, it was beautiful in the snowy forest.

In La Grave the following day we had an enjoyable day skiing under blue skies. This is hitching a lift on the glacier above the main La Grave gondola.

Nice snow on the glacier.

The next day on the Col du Lauteret getting ready for a ski tour up and over the Col de Côte Plaine (2639m). Martin, Cyril (our guide from the Skiers Lodge), Delphine, Lotta, Ruth and Hans.

Starting the skin-up. Our start point was at 2057m so it was about 600m of vertical ascent.

For anyone that has cycled in the area, we are on the road up to the Col du Galibier.

We left the Col du Galibier road and headed west. Lotta and Cyril. Still a long way to climb.

On the Col de Côte Plaine with the Ecrins mountain range spread before us. La Grave is the bit in the sun on the right.

A close up of La Grave. The gondola goes up the left hand side of the ridge splitting the two areas of snow in the sun.

After the col we had almost 1000m of nice turns in spring snow, before having some fun trying to link up the snow patches on the final part of the descent.