Serre Chevalier, FR: Jan 29 + 30, 2023

jamesdeluxe

Administrator
After going to the Alps twice every season for the past dozen or so years, I sometimes think that I've acquired a decent overview of the various regions and their respective ski areas and resorts. Based on my visits along with reports from FTO and Alpinforum of the many that I haven't visited yet, I can rattle off most of their + and - characteristics.

Still, there's nothing like a first-hand visit to make you realise that knowing the bullets points of a ski area is one thing and experiencing them first-hand is another. Serre Chevalier was certainly Exhibit A for that. I was set to come here last winter but ultimately postponed due to low-tide conditions in the southern French Alps. This year, there was a reversal of fortune as Serre Chevalier and the rest of this region had plenty of cover while a large swath of the Alps was garnering breathless articles about the end of skiing as we know it.

The long and short of it is that Serre Chevalier is enormous, certainly one of the Alps larger interconnected circuits at 8.5 miles across and up to 3 miles deep. The standard disclaimer applies: the map is heavily compressed and doesn't communicate the scale, grandeur -- whatever you want to call it.
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Tony and Liz, whom I met for dinner in NYC ten or so years ago but have never skied with previously, concurred that we would need several days to get our arms around the extensive menu of terrain. In this post, I'm combining pix that Tony, Liz, and I took separately and he will follow with erudite commentary about conditions (we had a little of everything) and additional photos.

We started in the middle village of the circuit, Chantemerle:
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Cote Gauthier:
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Backside Yret:
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This leads into the valley floor south of Briancon, where you'll need a taxi.
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On Day 1, we were fortunate to have Julien, a lifetime resident of the region, give us an excellent tour of offpiste/trees.
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Julien's happy clients:
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With tree lines that go much higher in elevation than is normal in the Alps, skiing in the larch forests is one of Serre Chevalier's big calling cards. Here's Liz in a lightly tracked line:
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Julien's local knowledge helped us nail some untracked goodies similar to these, including one south-facing line that was still powdery:
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Plenty of elbow room on our own in Vallons:
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Tony with the town of Briançon below:
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Liz further down:
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Monday lunch stop:
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Some Quebec-inspired fun at an on-mountain sugar shack. The pink macaroon display is a nice touch:
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Served by the effervescent Sandrine:
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Since there are no maple trees there, they use local honey:
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A few shots of me in the late-afternoon shadows near Cibouit, including a plane's vapor trail (nice one, Liz):
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A bit further down:
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And finally exiting through a series of natural half pipes:
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We have a few more pics.

James in the trees:
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We think these trees were between the Oree du Bois and Foret chairs. This tree run was at least as long as the 1,000 vertical section of trees we skied at Sauze d'Oulx, and not as easily scoutable from a lift. Thus Julien's guidance was invaluable.

The short stash of SW facing powder was on the backside of the Eychauda poma. We traversed out to the ridgeline looking back at the poma.
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This was the only run we got up there. We were elsewhere on Monday, and the poma was closed Wednesday because the adjacent piste to its base was being used for a race.

We had lunch at the same Echaillon restaurant where I had dined with Extremely Canadian in 2008.
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Julien had an afternoon lesson, and he advised us to check out the far western terrain served by the Cibouit and Yret lifts. We headed back to Chantemerle via Vallons, a playground of wide open rollers and natural halfpipes.
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This reminded me of the backside Saddle Basin at Treble Cone in New Zealand.

James found some windsift between the moguls.
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James left his backpack in our car.
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It is a boot carrying pack designed exactly like the ones Liz and I have. I finally got the logical explanation why he does not carry boots in it. By checking a boot bag and ski bag as a single item, he does not have to bring a suitcase as a separate item, which would cost ~$150 in bag fees round trip. That adds up over many trips and is worth the risk of the occasional lost luggage snafu which as yet James has never experienced.
 
I finally got the logical explanation why he does not carry boots in it. By checking a boot bag and ski bag as a single item, he does not have to bring a suitcase as a separate item, which would cost ~$150 in bag fees round trip. That adds up over many trips and is worth the risk of the occasional lost luggage snafu which as yet James has never experienced.
This was a real bee in Tony's bonnet. I'm virtually positive to have mentioned that point ^^ at least once during previous travel discussions but Tony claims otherwise. At some point, I'll do a search and dig it up.

On to more important matters -- for my final evening in Briançon, Tony and Liz invited me to dinner at their hotel for Fondue/Raclette Night. None of us had ever seen this ingeniously odd gadget with retractable heating elements that melt the cheese onto the dish placed underneath. The diner then scoops it up with either a spatula or (at this restaurant) a cleaver to spread onto meat or bread. Who knew??

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For the record, I passed on the cheese and ordered risotto as my main dish.
 
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