Ski touring: Val Thorens without a chairlift

Ski touring used to be a gnarly pursuit for beardy blokes but new itineraries in the French Alps offer a safer – but still arduous – way to enjoy the sport

Traditional downhill skiing may be all glitz and glamour, but the biggest growth area in winter sports at the moment requires a certain amount of hard graft and is as likely to have you dripping with sweat as swooping elegantly downhill.

Ski touring, or ski de randonnée as it’s known in France, involves forsaking ski lifts and hiking up the slopes before hooning back down. According to Snowsports Industries America (SIA) the sport has seen a 15% growth in popularity in recent years, as have sales of specialist ski touring equipment; by contrast, regular skiing and snowboarding trips have seen a decline in sales.

Many resorts are now offering ski touring “itineraries” – marked trails where novices can have a go, while remaining within easy reach of the resort. In the past ski touring has, with some justification, been seen as an activity that involves long, hard treks into backcountry, undertaken by people with itchy woollen shirts and compulsory beards.

Val Thorens, the highest ski resort in Europe, has developed five new itinéraires. Its first, La Camille, is named after one of the founders of the resort, mountain guide Camille Rey, and I was taken on this easy 1.5km trail with Fred Chabert, 42, who, coincidentally, is married to Rey’s daughter, Marjorie.

The route involves a modest 260 metres of climbing, and as we ascended in bright, early morning sunlight close to the blue Corniche piste, Fred told me: “The great thing about these itineraries for novice ski tourers is that they can all be reached from the centre of Val Thorens and are never far from the piste, so if you get tired it’s easy to ski back to the resort. And they’re safe – all the trails have been secured against avalanche by the ski patrol or pass through terrain where avalanches don’t occur.”

The specialist gear needed for touring (skis with touring bindings that allow you to walk uphill, “skins” that attach to the bottom of the skis to stop you sliding backwards, and flexible ski touring boots) can be rented in the resort, and those who take to it can try longer itineraries of up to 6km and 300 metres of ascent.

But why slog uphill when Val Thorens is crisscrossed with lifts linking some of the highest ski terrain in Europe? Well, as Carole Deu, who works at the resort, says: “It allows full immersion in the mountains and nature.”

As Fred and I climbed out of Val Thorens, we entered an alpine environment that, while not exactly pristine – we could still see ski lifts and were always near the pistes – still provided a taste of what I’ve enjoyed on “proper” long ski-touring days in the backcountry.

Just a few rabbit prints laced the fresh snow and, at one point, we could see where an animal had scraped away at the snow to nibble at heather and grass beneath; and when the winter sun burst over the summit of 3,561-metre Aiguille de Péclet behind us, the untouched snowfields glittered and dazzled in a silence you’d never find on the pistes.

Despite temperatures well below zero I was down to just a couple of layers with the exertion of climbing, and the lack of oxygen (Val Thorens village is at 2,300 metres) had me puffing like a steam train. Regular rest stops as we ascended revealed ever more impressive mountain panoramas, while the resort of Val Thorens receded into the distance. Leaving the resort behind under my own steam made the whole thing seem like far more of a mountain adventure than gliding upwards on a chairlift, but we had the reassurance of knowing that this was as safe a mountain environment as it could reasonably be.

And as I was with a guide, we were able to continue above the top of the trail for a few hundred metres to enjoy a partially off-piste, untracked descent which would have been inaccessible by ski lift.

Later in the day, Fred and I enjoyed another short, easy climb to the Refuge du Lac du Lou, where we enjoyed a traditional local lunch of oeufs cocotte and farçon (potato cake), followed by a shot of homemade génépi liqueur before skiing back to Val Thorens – and, unlike some of my ski lunches, this was one I could definitely say I’d earned.

The trip was provided by Sno, which has seven-night breaks to Val Thorens from £676pp, including flights, transfers and accommodation in a catered chalet. Check live availability here

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKyilsOmuI5rZ2pxX6Kus3uPamaso5liwbDB0aKloGWZqbavsdGaq6Kdo2LDoriMrZ%2BoqpWjwG6y0Z6lnKBdlrmxv4yfqZqmk5o%3D