Once we decided to ski the southern French Alps, Liz expressed interest in visiting Monaco for a weekend. The drive from Briancon is about 5 hours and I wanted to get in a ski day on the way. James had spent a whole week skiing from Nice in 2018 and recommended Auron.
We have taken many excursions in our Alps travels, but this one was by far the toughest driving, less than half an hour on multilane highways. We drove 6 hours from Montgenevre to St. Etienne de Tinee Thursday, arriving 11PM and only having road food for dinner in this remote region. Fortunately the weather was good and the roads were clean.
Due to the accessibility, probably 95% of the skiers are local, from Nice, Marseille and the Mediterranean environs. It’s sort of like nearly all of Brundage/Tamarack skiers being from the Boise area.
Friday morning we drove up the hill to Auron and parked in its village, finding breakfast at this boulangerie.
You know you’re in old school France when:
Almost no one speaks English.
The boulangerie doesn’t take credit cards.
The proprietor is outside taking a smoking break.
Liz enjoying her breakfast:
While there is a ticket office in this plaza, a short tram takes you across a deep ravine to the base of the ski area. View across that ravine to town late in the day:
You can drive up the switchbacks at left and park at the ski area base if you want.
We rode the second Las Donnas tram up higher for our first run.
View down on Ciavalet run:
We took the Dome lift to Auron’s backside, which is much more expansive than it looks on the map. The Dome chair faces east while most of the backside faces northwest. Here’s the view south from top of Dome.
The horizon line at center distance is the Mediterranean. I believe the Maritime Alps block out northern cold air from Monaco, which is slightly warmer in January than Genoa and the Cinque Terre to the east or Marseille and Barcelona to the west. It was a real contrast to our Venice excursion at the same time in 2017. The average January low temperature in Monaco (44F) is higher than the average January high temperature in Venice.
From same spot, here’s the view NW where we will be skiing.
The groomers at Auron were overall in slightly better shape than at comparable elevations at Serre Chevalier, Puy St. Vincent and Montgenevre. Skier density was a bit lower and I’m fairly sure there was zero rain back at Christmas. This warning sign at the top of Roche Taliere was a bit exaggerated IMHO.
There were a few “floater rocks,” easily avoided.
The run from Dome was about 1,700 vertical and we took two more laps on the ~1,000 vertical Butieres chair. This eagle sculpture is at the top of Butieres.
We thought we would return to base via the Croix and Puy runs, but Puy was burned off so we ended up at Lieuson. Above Lieuson is a view down to St. Etienne de Tinee and a huge landslide scar on the opposing mountain.
We skied Baisse down to the Haute Plane lift. The topof Haute Plane had the obligatoy French ski area sign.
The only ungroomed snow we skied all day was this sheltered patch under Haute Plane, maybe 200 vertical.
Then we ran another backside lap on Fournet. Overview of Auron’s front side from the top of Butieres:
We skied Champ Roulon to the base and rode the slow Pres chair. There is some interesting off piste visible near the Dome lift.
We were not tempted as that snow is probably a month old.
We took a Frasse Olympique run from the top Arbis chair and finished with a long Columbier/Blainon run along the eastern boundary.
We skied 21,500 vertical. After Friday’s skiing it was another 2+ hours drive to Monaco.
We have taken many excursions in our Alps travels, but this one was by far the toughest driving, less than half an hour on multilane highways. We drove 6 hours from Montgenevre to St. Etienne de Tinee Thursday, arriving 11PM and only having road food for dinner in this remote region. Fortunately the weather was good and the roads were clean.
Due to the accessibility, probably 95% of the skiers are local, from Nice, Marseille and the Mediterranean environs. It’s sort of like nearly all of Brundage/Tamarack skiers being from the Boise area.
Friday morning we drove up the hill to Auron and parked in its village, finding breakfast at this boulangerie.
You know you’re in old school France when:
Almost no one speaks English.
The boulangerie doesn’t take credit cards.
The proprietor is outside taking a smoking break.
Liz enjoying her breakfast:
While there is a ticket office in this plaza, a short tram takes you across a deep ravine to the base of the ski area. View across that ravine to town late in the day:
You can drive up the switchbacks at left and park at the ski area base if you want.
We rode the second Las Donnas tram up higher for our first run.
View down on Ciavalet run:
We took the Dome lift to Auron’s backside, which is much more expansive than it looks on the map. The Dome chair faces east while most of the backside faces northwest. Here’s the view south from top of Dome.
The horizon line at center distance is the Mediterranean. I believe the Maritime Alps block out northern cold air from Monaco, which is slightly warmer in January than Genoa and the Cinque Terre to the east or Marseille and Barcelona to the west. It was a real contrast to our Venice excursion at the same time in 2017. The average January low temperature in Monaco (44F) is higher than the average January high temperature in Venice.
From same spot, here’s the view NW where we will be skiing.
The groomers at Auron were overall in slightly better shape than at comparable elevations at Serre Chevalier, Puy St. Vincent and Montgenevre. Skier density was a bit lower and I’m fairly sure there was zero rain back at Christmas. This warning sign at the top of Roche Taliere was a bit exaggerated IMHO.
There were a few “floater rocks,” easily avoided.
The run from Dome was about 1,700 vertical and we took two more laps on the ~1,000 vertical Butieres chair. This eagle sculpture is at the top of Butieres.
We thought we would return to base via the Croix and Puy runs, but Puy was burned off so we ended up at Lieuson. Above Lieuson is a view down to St. Etienne de Tinee and a huge landslide scar on the opposing mountain.
We skied Baisse down to the Haute Plane lift. The topof Haute Plane had the obligatoy French ski area sign.
The only ungroomed snow we skied all day was this sheltered patch under Haute Plane, maybe 200 vertical.
Then we ran another backside lap on Fournet. Overview of Auron’s front side from the top of Butieres:
We skied Champ Roulon to the base and rode the slow Pres chair. There is some interesting off piste visible near the Dome lift.
We were not tempted as that snow is probably a month old.
We took a Frasse Olympique run from the top Arbis chair and finished with a long Columbier/Blainon run along the eastern boundary.
We skied 21,500 vertical. After Friday’s skiing it was another 2+ hours drive to Monaco.
