Liz convinced me that a second day at Alpe d’Huez might not be that pleasant in colder temperatures than Monday. So we looked for Wednesday alternatives on the way back to Geneva, a 2 hour 30 minute drive if direct from Alpe d’Huez. We chose Sybelles, the westernmost complex of the Maurienne Valley. The high alpine above Les 3 Lacs sector of Sybelles is only 6 miles by air from the upper Alpettes tram at Vaujany where we skied Monday, and there are proposals to make a lift connection there.
By car the drive from Alpe d’Huez to the St. Colomban des Villards back entry to Sybelles was 2 hours 20 minutes, and after skiing we had a two hour drive to Geneva. Both of these trips would have been at least 20 minutes longer if we had driven to one of the 5 frontside villages shown on the trail map.
It takes 4 slow lifts to get up from St. Colomban into the high alpine. View of ESF instructor with 3 children:
One third of the French schools are out this week, as we noted many kids at Alpe d’Huez and Deux Alpes also.
View from second lift shows wide open James-friendly terrain worth a few laps a couple of weeks ago.
Finally the third (a poma) and fourth lifts come into view.
The trail in foreground is part of the 4-mile, 3,800 vertical descent we will take at the end of the day.
Riding the poma we spotted a worthy “Jerry of the Day” candidate. Liz took several pics and this was the most view she could get.
This guy fell early on but hung on to the poma and let it drag him over half its length while on the ground.
We skied Longe Combe to the #17 (orange colored lifts on the map were all we skied after the initial ascent from St. Colomban) chair. We reached l’Ouillon overlooking the front side just past noon, over an hour after we started. Here’s the usual French hilltop sign with Mont Blanc (60 miles away) in the background.
View west with large sign directing to our end of the day run:
I’m still bundled up from those 5 chair rides. It was probably 15F and very comfortable once we started skiing.
We next skied that red Aiguille run labeled on the sign in the pic above. As we have observed each day since no new snow, the pistes are progressively more scraped with increasing pitch and skier traffic, even up here at 8,000 feet. Liz fell on this one and yelled enough that I stopped, but she got up without assistance.
We continued on to the #16 chair and observed a few people skiing off piste under the lift.
So we did likewise in the shaded chalky snow.
The only piste from #16 is Blanchot off the east facing front side. Partway down we diverted to Panoramique, with its view down to St. Sorlin d’Arves.
The eye catching peaks at upper right are Les Aiguilles d’Arves, highest one 11,500 feet. Valloire is on the other side of those peaks, though neither Liz nor I remember seeing them on Jan. 24 as there were usually clouds in that direction.
The meandering Panoramique has a short uphill section while taking in the views.
Snow also gets a little thin with the SE exposure as you go lower, and the weather was cool enough that it didn’t soften much even at 1,600 meter village elevation. So after a short break it seemed obvious we should spend most of our remaining time skiing the #14 and #21 lifts reaching Sybelles’ highest point at 2,620 meters.
While riding #20 to head that way we see this large off piste area that would be worth exploring with fresher snow.
Here we are at the top of Les 3 Lacs lifts.
We took one run over La Balme on Grange which had some scratchy snow on its steeper pitch. Heading back up, here’s the view of pistes/terrain served by #14.
When we reached the top I wanted to ski the ungroomed Perrons Haut under #21, but Liz said her knee was bothering her from the fall on the Aiguille piste 3 hours earlier. So she skied near the Tufs piste with this view past #21.
Views up Perrons Haut, about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way down:
View down from same spot as second pic able:
That lower section was one place where I was forced into the larger moguls, but the snow was smooth chalk all the way down.
We regrouped at #21 and saw some artwork on this rock on the ride up.
We thn skied the Vallons piste to #17.
It was about 3:20 and there were a lot of people on Vallons. I’d say many people from all the base villages had headed up to the higher terrain for the afternoon and now they were on their way back. We expected the lower rollover pitches of Vallons would be well scraped but there was chalky off piste with varying moguls at skier’s right which we skied to bypass those sections.
We reached l’Ouillon at 3:40, so there was time for a run down the #18 lift. But it seemed obvious that run would be congested and scraped this late in the day, so we just skied the long run back to St. Colomban. The snow was shaded and hardpacked, but there were very few people as there is almost no vacation bed base down there.
On our way south I chose Valloire/Valmeinier over Sybelles for its better exposure. Sybelles is much bigger, as we saw maybe half of it today due to cherry picking conditions. I’d also say terrain quality looks more interesting too. We skied 19,700 vertical.
By car the drive from Alpe d’Huez to the St. Colomban des Villards back entry to Sybelles was 2 hours 20 minutes, and after skiing we had a two hour drive to Geneva. Both of these trips would have been at least 20 minutes longer if we had driven to one of the 5 frontside villages shown on the trail map.
It takes 4 slow lifts to get up from St. Colomban into the high alpine. View of ESF instructor with 3 children:
One third of the French schools are out this week, as we noted many kids at Alpe d’Huez and Deux Alpes also.
View from second lift shows wide open James-friendly terrain worth a few laps a couple of weeks ago.
Finally the third (a poma) and fourth lifts come into view.
The trail in foreground is part of the 4-mile, 3,800 vertical descent we will take at the end of the day.
Riding the poma we spotted a worthy “Jerry of the Day” candidate. Liz took several pics and this was the most view she could get.
This guy fell early on but hung on to the poma and let it drag him over half its length while on the ground.
We skied Longe Combe to the #17 (orange colored lifts on the map were all we skied after the initial ascent from St. Colomban) chair. We reached l’Ouillon overlooking the front side just past noon, over an hour after we started. Here’s the usual French hilltop sign with Mont Blanc (60 miles away) in the background.
View west with large sign directing to our end of the day run:
I’m still bundled up from those 5 chair rides. It was probably 15F and very comfortable once we started skiing.
We next skied that red Aiguille run labeled on the sign in the pic above. As we have observed each day since no new snow, the pistes are progressively more scraped with increasing pitch and skier traffic, even up here at 8,000 feet. Liz fell on this one and yelled enough that I stopped, but she got up without assistance.
We continued on to the #16 chair and observed a few people skiing off piste under the lift.
So we did likewise in the shaded chalky snow.
The only piste from #16 is Blanchot off the east facing front side. Partway down we diverted to Panoramique, with its view down to St. Sorlin d’Arves.
The eye catching peaks at upper right are Les Aiguilles d’Arves, highest one 11,500 feet. Valloire is on the other side of those peaks, though neither Liz nor I remember seeing them on Jan. 24 as there were usually clouds in that direction.
The meandering Panoramique has a short uphill section while taking in the views.
Snow also gets a little thin with the SE exposure as you go lower, and the weather was cool enough that it didn’t soften much even at 1,600 meter village elevation. So after a short break it seemed obvious we should spend most of our remaining time skiing the #14 and #21 lifts reaching Sybelles’ highest point at 2,620 meters.
While riding #20 to head that way we see this large off piste area that would be worth exploring with fresher snow.
Here we are at the top of Les 3 Lacs lifts.
We took one run over La Balme on Grange which had some scratchy snow on its steeper pitch. Heading back up, here’s the view of pistes/terrain served by #14.
When we reached the top I wanted to ski the ungroomed Perrons Haut under #21, but Liz said her knee was bothering her from the fall on the Aiguille piste 3 hours earlier. So she skied near the Tufs piste with this view past #21.
Views up Perrons Haut, about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way down:
View down from same spot as second pic able:
That lower section was one place where I was forced into the larger moguls, but the snow was smooth chalk all the way down.
We regrouped at #21 and saw some artwork on this rock on the ride up.
We thn skied the Vallons piste to #17.
It was about 3:20 and there were a lot of people on Vallons. I’d say many people from all the base villages had headed up to the higher terrain for the afternoon and now they were on their way back. We expected the lower rollover pitches of Vallons would be well scraped but there was chalky off piste with varying moguls at skier’s right which we skied to bypass those sections.
We reached l’Ouillon at 3:40, so there was time for a run down the #18 lift. But it seemed obvious that run would be congested and scraped this late in the day, so we just skied the long run back to St. Colomban. The snow was shaded and hardpacked, but there were very few people as there is almost no vacation bed base down there.
On our way south I chose Valloire/Valmeinier over Sybelles for its better exposure. Sybelles is much bigger, as we saw maybe half of it today due to cherry picking conditions. I’d also say terrain quality looks more interesting too. We skied 19,700 vertical.
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