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Season Diary - Day 25

Henry
Mar 16
2 min read

Sunday 16th March 2025 - Val d'Isere, France

Yet again arrival in Val was greeted by a dump of snow. On the train ride over from Flaine (or rather, three buses and four train rides over from Flaine) snow was falling on an off, even far, far down the valley.

I had around two hours to kill in Bourg Saint Maurice. This is a really unique town, for most people a place to stop briefly when changing from train to bus to complete the journey up the Tarentaise Valley, or passing through on a coach on your way to or from the airport.

But Bourg is a complete mountain town. The funicular takes you to the heart of Les Arc - one of the biggest ski resorts in the Alps - in a heartbeat, meaning this is a ski town. Really.

But it also has a proper village feel. There's a main street that winds its way from the train station up to the church, beset on all sides by picturesque French shops. The cherry on top, literally, is the patisserie about a third of the way up. It is utterly divine. Picture perfect pastries, cakes and tarts stare back at you from behind the counter, and trust me when I say this, the custard slice is utterly, indefatigable delicious.

So what of the snow whisperer? Another 20cm overnight into Sunday was also met with cloud up high. So, the same as last year, we headed for the trees.

I have such a love hate relationship with tree skiing. On a good day, with tonnes of powder and North American style cleared glades, I have a whale of a time.

But Europe and Val don't clear their trees. And to be honest, neither should they. The forest is what makes the place special, indeed any mountain environment special. Therefore, you have to find your pulleys and lines to avoid the trees. Sometimes it's a case of seeing the trees for the forest, picking two or three turns ahead of you to avoid taking a branch to the face or a root to the ski.

Anyway, we skied the pants off the Laisanant trees, scoring some really nice powder on untouched lines slightly higher above the tree line.

Tree skiing is a weird one. It's all about how quickly you can pivot your skis beneath you. That's it. This is no place for French-style turn-with-the-shoulders style skiing. Get low with your chest, keep it pointing down the hill, and let your skis do the work. There really is no other way. But the more you can stick to this, the more you can let your skis pivot beneath you, the better time you'll have.

Today was a plus day. A real plus day. To cap it off, we went for a sunset tour up the Manchet Valley to break in new touring skis, so it really was a bit of everything.