Freeride touring in Crévoux with a lively crew from Quebec: 3 days of powder runs, adapting our plans to the ever-changing conditions in the French Alps.
This winter is turning out to be nothing like last winter! Storms keep rolling in, constantly reshuffling the cards in the mountains. Nothing can be taken for granted, and it takes some serious head-scratching to find great skiing while keeping things as safe as possible!
When Juliette, David and Alex arrive in the Hautes-Alpes, the idea of a hut-to-hut ski tour is already off the table: the avalanche danger is high, and visibility over the first two days looks far too unpredictable for me to feel comfortable heading into the high mountains… We need to ski in forested areas, but not too low either, as the freezing level has been bouncing up and down over the past few days and a crust is starting to form below 1,800 m. In short, not too high, not too low!
Once again, I've deliberately avoided locking this trip into a rigid itinerary, leaving myself as much room for manoeuvre as possible to make the most of whatever snow conditions we find.
Things get off to a great start with my Quebec crew, bursting with energy and enthusiasm. A nice, relaxed trip is shaping up! And for me, it's total immersion in the Quebec accent — a little trip across the Atlantic without the airfare! Hostie d'câlice!
After the usual first-morning logistical juggling, we set off towards Crévoux for a warm-up day combining ski lifts and climbing skins…
There's a brief moment of confusion when, after 20 minutes of driving towards Les Orres, I suddenly realise we're heading in completely the wrong direction!! Ouppss! At this stage, we haven't even touched the snow yet, and my Quebecers are being driven around the winding local roads by a mountain guide who quite clearly appears to be lost! Everything's going brilliantly!
We eventually make it to Crévoux and its three drag lifts, our gateway to happiness. Little do we know that we'll be coming back for the next two days as well. Today is about getting a feel for the team, checking the conditions and getting to know each other.
The first run is pretty convincing: three incredibly motivated skiers, loud whoops of joy from the very first turns and absolutely magical snow conditions! A crust makes a brief appearance over the last 100 vertical metres at the bottom, just to remind us that bad snow does actually exist!!
The Crévards crew is up and running, and there's no stopping us now! Run after run, skins on, skins off, skins back on again, we methodically draw lines across every bit of terrain we can safely ski, steering clear of the steeper slopes given the avalanche danger.
And there's plenty of work to be done, especially as hardly anyone else seems willing to lend us a hand… So, for three days in a row, we bravely devote ourselves to this exhausting task!
We've lost count of the kilometres of descent we've racked up in this princess-perfect powder, not to mention the minutes spent shouting with delight in the bowls around Crévoux!!
For the first two days, we play hide-and-seek with the clouds, improvising our runs whenever the sky clears — or sometimes skiing straight through the clouds…
And then comes a grand finale on the last day, with genuine, certified Hautes-Alpes sunshine and snow fit for royalty from top to bottom!
Client Testimonials (0)
No testimonials yet. Did you join this outing? Leave your review!
Write a review
Share your experience of this adventure. Access restricted to participants.
Want to experience this type of adventure?
Contact me to plan your custom high-mountain project.
Contact me
