Behind the 3 Valleys.

A fine day out in the sun today with Derek.
We started with a quick blast from Courchevel over to Val Thorens with the intention of doing a tour round the back of the 3 Valleys.

Perfect snow was waiting for us on the ski from the Col chair down to the curiously named Lacs Cafe au Lait:



A 40 minute skin then took us up to the Col Superieur de Chaviere, at the very head of the Pralognan valley. Derek removing skins at the col:



The East side of the col gave variable but pleasant snow until we cut a leftwards traverse to sneak in towards the Lac Blanc above the Peclet-Polset refuge, with some nice short pitches on the way:





A very hot and sweaty skin then took us up to the Col des Fonds, at the head of the Meribel/Mottaret valley:



The final push to the col:



Its all downhill from here (nearly). Sadly we had been 'gazumped' on our quest for virgin snow all day, as 2 skiers had already skinned up from below the Col de Chanrouge and skied our valley, however 2 tracks are easy to avoid and we had the rest of the fresh powder to ourselves:



A happy-looking Derek:



Aiguille de Chanrossa:



A grind across the flat terrain got us finally back into Mottaret at the end of a long, hot, but memorable day, with mostly great powder snow on the descents!!

(Cheers to Zoe for the lift back round to Courchevel!)