Free-rando - Ubaye

My favourite Norwegians are back for the third year in a row, ready to endure all the whims and improvisations of their guide! Despite a few tentative attempts to find out more about the programme in the days leading up to the trip, I didn’t give anything away. Just as well, really, because there wasn’t much of a programme in the first place! Ideas, on the other hand, I had plenty of!

With the latest forecast in hand, I opt for a semi-hut-to-hut trip that should eventually take us into Val Maira, after a couple of days in Fouillouse with Odilon — the Mecca of ski touring in the Ubaye. The cosy huts we’ve booked in Val Maira look very promising. Everything is shaping up nicely!

Experience has taught me never to be too ambitious on the first day. Give my travellers time to settle into holiday mode, gather everything we need to slide around the mountains in reasonable conditions, empty one or two bakeries… and buy an entire new wardrobe when an unlucky bag gets sent in the wrong direction!

So, if we want to get some skiing in today without putting too much strain on the bodies, we’re going to have to be clever. Tor, Karl and Eddi paint me a fairly catastrophic picture of their current fitness. I quickly abandon the idea of the Vallon du Crachet — far too ambitious. Maybe this is the perfect day for a little freerando in the Ubaye?

A good excuse to visit Sainte-Anne-la-Condamine, a microscopic ski resort tucked away at the far end of the Ubaye… The ski touring lift pass costs roughly the same as a cup of coffee in Oslo. From the top of the lifts, another 250 m of effort gives us access to a delicious run of around 1,000 vertical metres. Not a bad ratio!

We climb towards the Arpillon using the GPS, with very, very limited visibility… My friends are catapulted straight from everyday life into the great white. That gets them into the mood pretty quickly! A small stroke of luck: at the top, the clouds begin to break apart, which makes my job considerably easier on terrain I don’t know and, as a bonus, makes the skiing much easier for all of us.

After cautiously skiing the first, slightly steeper slopes, we dive into the huge bowl below the Arpillon, almost completely untouched… Excellent powder to kick off our six days together! The photos could have proved it, but apparently the camera had decided to switch itself into permanent blur mode!

After this pretty much perfect little run, we head for the welcoming gîte in Fouillouse and an evening of musical — and well-watered — celebrations!

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