Welcome Meeting in Chamonix

You will meet with your group and Chamex mountain guide at the Chamonix Experience office in Chamonix Sud on Sunday evening to discuss the programme for the week. Your mountain guide will let you know what to expect from the weather and snow conditions and you will have the chance to ask any last minute questions.

Day 1 – Le Tour & Col de Balme

Le Tour is a good place for your guide/instructor to assess everyone’s ski level and run through the basics of mountain saftey and avalanche awaress. The off-piste is easily accessible and the gradient is not too steep. Le Tour also offers brilliant tree skiing and long runs to Switzerland over the Col de Balme. The back bowls of Le Tour are also perfect for studying how wind, terrain and temperatures affect the snow pack and avalanche risk, so here is where you will do your avalanche awareness training to get the week off to a safe start.

Day 2 – Les Houches

Today we will discover the fun off-piste terrain of Les Houches. This area offers lower altitude skiing with a handy network of lifts and pistes cutting amongst a fairly large off-piste area. It is the perfect place to practise your newly learned techniques before venturing deeper into backcountry terrain. You’ll find plenty of variety here from wide snowfields to dense forests, where you can practise skiing amongst trees and making tight controlled turns in ungroomed snow.

Day 3 – Brevent & Flegere

The south facing ski areas of Flégère and Brévent offer fun terrain with many secret bowls, which tend to be among snowboarders’ favourite spots in Chamonix. When Brévent is good, it is possibly the best off-piste in the valley. There is the famous Hotel Face and the ENSA couloirs, to mention only a few of the classic Chamonix off-piste itineraries. Flegere is where the locals head on a powder day while everyone else is out fighting for fresh tracks at Les Grands Montets! Your ski instructor will show you the best spots that only the locals know about.

Day 4 – Courmayeur, Italy

Today we visit the Courmayeur ski area, just on the other side of the Mont Blanc tunnel. Different country, different atmosphere, with delicious food and excellent skiing! There is plenty of very varied backcountry terrain to explore and your efforts will be rewarded by a nice Italian lunch followed by coffee or bombardino!

Day 5 – Les Grands Montets

Your last day will be spent skiing the most challenging ski area in the Chamonix Valley. Les Grand Montets’ high elevation and north-facing aspect means that this area holds snow the best and until latest in the season. It offers excellent long steep pitches, big powder bowls, exciting mogul runs, and lovely forests where you can practice all the off-piste ski techniques that you have learned this week.

The course ends with debriefing in our office at the end of the final day, and maybe a few drinks with your new riding buddies to celebrate a fantastic week.

Optional Vallee Blanche add on day

Finish your course with an epic descent of Europe’s longest off-piste ski run – the legendary Vallee Blanche! Stepping out from the top of the Aiguille du Midi you will join the ranks of freeriders, alpinists and backcountry skiers who come from all over the world to tick this off their bucket lists. Although incredibly impressive, the classic route is not hugely technical so if conditions are favourable you should be ready to tackle it by the end of your course, safely lead by one of our UIAGM mountain guides. This is an optional extra that you can add on as a 6th day, either privately or with the other members of your group. Read more about the Vallee Blanche.

Throughout the course you’ll be developing various skills that will make you a stronger and more confident off-piste skier, such as how to:

• Parallel turn on steep slopes
• Tackle moguls and uneven terrain
• Control your turns amongst trees
• Keep your balance in deep snow
• Increase your strength and stability on your skis

Once you’ve completed your introduction to off-piste skiing, you’ll have opened up a whole new world of possibilities! Continue to develop your skills and become a stronger off-piste skier on our Off-Piste Performance Course or our Chamonix Steep Skiing Course.

Technical level

You have a good level skiing on piste, and are comfortable skiing on all groomed runs, making small turns, turning on demand, and skiing moguls/ bumps. You have no experience venturing off-piste, and would like to get further from the lifts- skiing powder and “natural” mountain snow.

Physical fitness

You’re in good physical shape. You can ski with a backpack carrying backcountry essentials (shovel, probe, water, snack.) You can walk uphill for 15 minutes carrying your skis or snowboard on your pack.