After the usual chaos at Turin airport, documented on a different thread on here, we were on the short transfer up to champoluc. It's about 45 minutes north on the motorway up the Aosta valley before heading up the ayas valley another 45 minutes of winding hairpins and finally to champoluc.
It's a small old rustic village which winds along the road at the bottom of the valley. There is really not much apart from a few hotels and apartments all built in the traditional local style, a village square with some bars and restaurants, and another group of bars and restaurants slightly further up the hill where the crest gondola is the first lift out of town. This is where we stayed, right next door to the crest gondola in the hotel de champoluc, booked with crystal and selected because of its location and excellent reviews.
It was cold on arrival, -6c in the village early afternoon, but bright and sunny, so we set off to eat and acclimatise ourselves with the surroundings. Directly opposite us was a traditional Italian restaurant where we had a fabulous pizza lunch at very reasonable cost - massive pizzas for between 8 and 10 euros, plus a half litre of wine for 5 euros.
The hotel itself offered very large rooms with either twin or a double bed, good sized ensuite bathroom, and a balcony through double doors. Lots of electric points which is useful, and a large wardrobe plus coat hooks by the door, a desk and chair, and sky tv. Looking out from the balcony and there was the gondola, ready for action first thing in the morning.
The lift out of champoluc opens at 8.30am, and its an old 6 seater sit down affair, typical Italian, but it trundles on and on despite its apparent age. Skis go outside but they don't hold twin tips well so you end up splitting them and putting them in the board slots.
Let me take you on the monterosa area ski tour;
Monday morning saw a sunny start to the day with some thin cloud in places, no wind at all, and -10c and 8.30am. We rode the crest gondola which brings you out at a plateau where there is a beginners area and a new gondola up to ostafa which is the 2nd stage above the village. From here we decided to have a warm up run back down to mid point which was a lovely sweeping red, perfectly groomed and completely empty apart for, the 8 of us. This was going to become the theme for the week.
After a denture rattling run down, we headed back up to ostafa from where you ski 200m to the brand new sarezza chair which is the highest point above champoluc at 2702m.
You can head back down over champoluc, all runs this side are reds, lovely and wide with lots of corners winding back down with great vertical drops on one side of the pistes. There's also a mogul field under the sarezza chair and some off piste opportunities in some parts down to the village.
We headed down the C6 which is signed to Frachey and gressoney, in the next valley and heading from one extremity of the area to the other. This is a fantastic red with a dog leg right which has a steep drop between 2 peaks.
As the week went by we attacked this a lot quicker knowing what was in store, but this could possibly freak out early or timid intermediates as it drops right away from you out of sight. But it opens up under the initial ridge to a massive wide open piste superb for carving at high speed, and sweeps down to an old 2 man chair which goes in both directions. Go left and it takes you back up to the belvedere peak above champoluc, or go right and it takes you onward with the tour heading underneath Mont Ros above the small village of Frachey just up the valley from champoluc.
The exit from the lift station looks something like a 1960s petrol station.
You ski down from here on one of the very few blues in the area, which will lead you by turning left all the way on the blue, or by going straight on joining up with red C11, which end up at the bottom of the Mandria chair.
Here we stumbled the Lo Retsignon cafe, a small old place run by a family who were most welcoming, coffee at 1,50 a go. This became our morning stop every day just because it was about an hour and a half in from our start point and served the best Latte we found.
Below here is the village of Frachey, where there is a large car park and a finicular which a lot of people use at weekends to avoid the one lift in Champoluc. Luckily we only saw what we regarded as crowds on the Saturday, with cafes and restaurants much busier, and the odd 5 minute queue for the Mandria chair here.
However, the top of the Mandria chair nearly always was about as busy as this:
You can ski the nice reds from here back down to the bottom of the same chair, with some tree skiing in between the pistes if you like, these were sunny in the mornings, and for several days a slalom course was marked out on one of the reds, which are steeper that you initially think.
Or head to the right following the Gressoney signs and you will come down a shortish run to the bottom of the long and ridiculously cold Bettaforca chair. It has no covers so be warned it will be cold in the mornings.
There is one long red under this chair, C14, which is a wondeful blast down from 2727m to 1992 all the way if you want to do it in one go. However, in the afternoons we ended up spending a lot of time around here as the sun hit it after lunch and there was just so much off the piste to play in on both sides. Heres an idea of what this looked like, heading down from both the left hand side mogul field at the top of the Bettaforca chair, or the right hand side and turning right again at the crest of the peak:
The lower side around C14 is more varied in terms of terrain, with rocks and gulleys to negotiate, and plenty of untracked powder despite it not having snowed for days.
From the top of the Bettaforca chair, you can also head straight down continuing the tour, using B1 which is a beautiful long sweeping red down towards Stafal, the mid point of the area in the 2nd valley across. This was sunny in the mornings, and we also discovered excellent off piste along here, starting with a long traverse as high up as you dare, which would then lead you through rock, gulleys, a few open meadows and all sorts of other interesting terrain to the bottom of the Sant Anna chair. Here are some photos taken along here:
At the bottom of this area is a cable car which you can ride down to Stafal, which is the way back up later on the way back. However, you can also ski the steep ridge down by taking eithe r a red track B6 or the "black run of death" as my mate referred to it, B3:
Its always difficult to show the true gradient on photos, but this black was wide enough to pull smooth turns on and traverse if anyone found it too steep, and only once did we have to stop and allow traffic pass, on the Saturday when the locals came out to play.
You'll find yourself in Stafal at the bottom of the middle valley now, and another shiny new gondola whisks you up to Gabiet, the mid point heading up to Passa Salati, the highest point in the area. Unfortunately, when you ski back down from here to Stafal heading home, the black run is the only way off and may scare some skiers, and worse still it brings you 500m away from the cable car back up which means skis off and walking down a nasty icy lane, across the river and back up the other side. Not much fun at the best of times, but particularly late in the afternoon when you've been at it all day!
At Passa Salati you have 3 options;
- Walk up to the cable car that takes you to Punta Indren where there is only the black itinerary route off, and where you are not allowed to ski without full avalanche equipment, so we didnt try to. This starts up at 3275m so has truly glacial heights.
- ski bac down to Gabiet from where you can ski the couple of reds above Gressoney la Trinite. We didnt bother with these few reds as they were some of the lowest on the circuit and involved a lot of messing about to get back on the main tour route across the 3 valleys
- ski down towards Alagna at the far end.
We took the third option every day. Theres a lovely blue V4 to Cimalenga, where you can pick up the Freeride Cable Car at mid station, or tke the right hand fork onto what became everyones favourite run, black V3 otherwise known as Olen. This is some 8km long and takes you into the wilderness up in the peaks before carving through the valley down to the Pianalunga mid station, where the Alagna gondola arrives and you can head back up the cable car to Passa Salati, or take the one chair up to Bochetta where theres another superb fast red by the abandoned old cable car station.
This is the view going down the black Olen run:
At this mid point is a tiny little hut called Alpen Stop where we had a couple of excellent lunches. A real find.
We skied once from here down to Alagna, but wished we hadnt bothered. The top section is quite tricky, but it heads down to the lowest part of the area at Alagna where the snow was really not too good - hard and crunchy, icy in patches, so we only did this the one time. Alagna itself involves a walk from the piste across town to the gondola back up, another reason not to bother, unless conditions were massively better of course. However, there is a cute little cafe 3/4 of the way down looking right across the bottom valley where we lunched the day we skied down, and well worth the stop it was too. Perched on the edge of the steep piste, with a sunny terrace until early afternoon, well worth a visit even if its only the one time.
It takes about 3 hours to ski from Alagna flat out back to Champoluc, so anyone who tells you its a small area is either winding you up or has no idea of distance. Ok, theres not much choice in the runs you can take, but not once did we feel as if we were repeating oursleves, and on a day touring you could only ski the same piste once to navigate around which helped with that I am sure.
So, back up the gondola and then the Freeride cable car to Passo Salati, and its a fantastic long red all the way back down towards Stafal, passing Gabiet midway down where theres a snow park to play on if you want.
We saw very few boarders here at all, probably less than 5% of traffic was boarders. However we noted that the vast majority of skiers were wearing hemlets, and 4 of our 8 were as well, a sign of the changing times and attitudes.
From Gabiet, you need to head down black V3 to get to Stafal. Another interesting black that might put some off, especially with the warning for expert skiers only, but it was quite manageable even for our most cautious member of the group. Once the steep descent has been negotiated, its a cruisey track back into Stafal before the walk across town to take the cable car back up to Sant Anna.
We used to find ourselves back here around 2 to 2.30pm most afternoons, and you could ski straight back in just over an hour and a half at a blast, but we would head up to Bettaforca and play on the off piste for a good hour or so before doing so.
You then do everything in reverse, heading for Frachey and the Mandria chair back up, but this time turning right for the blast down to the Belvedere chair and over the last ridge into the main Champoluc area.
The route back takes you bottom side around Punta Sarezza so you dont ski the same pistes as you had in the morning. On the C7 blue back you will stumble across the Belvedere Bar, with a lovely sunny terrace and seats inside if its too cold. Good place for a couple of beers before the final descent this, and the staff bring out nibbles such as Bruchetta and home made garlic bread, and little pasta bowls. Really nice way to end the day between 4 and 5 we found.
However, a couple of things to beware of on the run back into Champoluc. Firstly, you'll get thrown out of the Belvedere bar by the police when they think its becoming too dangerous to stay on the mountain in terms of conditions, temperature of just simply the time so its not dark. We were booted out at 5.30 one night:
Secondly, they tend to make snow when its cold and do this during the day, so when you head off at night, there are huge piles of manmade snow all over the pistes waiting for the pistey bashers to come and flatten and spread around. Heres one I climbed to the top of outside a Ski2 bar lower down:
Finally, the run back into Champoluc is quite steep in places, and doesnt get sun in the afternoons so its can get hard and icy, hence the man made snow, although strangely enough we didnt seem to have an issue with this after an hour at the Belvedere Bar!
Back into the Crest Gondola, and luckily for us a 20 metre walk over the fence into our hotel where we would drop our skis and walk all of another 50 metres to one of the local bars where we were treated fantastically well by the hosts with cheap drinks, crisps and nibbles.
Having been I am really pleased I made the decision to go to Champoluc. Its somewhere quite different, you cant quite put your finger on it. Its rustic and quiet, and you feel as if you are skiing right amongst the peaks, not underneath them.
The pisteurs do a good job, grooming is excellent and sign posts are clear about where to go. The runs are all long compared to many places I have been, and whilst you dont get lots of choice at the top of a lift, you dont find yourself doing the same run until the next day, unless you choose to go back and do it again of course, so all in all you get a fantastic feeling of travelling around.
Most lifts are new or upgraded, and whilst theyre not in the Austrian league with covers and heated seats, most are efficient and speedy enough, with only the odd 2 man chair to slow you down. I think however this means that investment will need a return and they will be pushing Monterosa hard as a place for tourists to visit, so my advice would be go now before it becomes popular.
We were irritated by Saturdays traffic on the slopes, and whilst there were more people on the slopes than Monday to Friday, it was hardly "busy". Only one lift queue all week to contend with as well.
For beginners I wouldnt recommend it at all, theres too much here for explorers. Its really a great place for intermediates and advanced skiers to go at with long sweeping runs, some of them challengingly steep in places for some, but wide enough to cope comfortably with some thought. And if you like freeriding and off piste, its a wonderful place to explore providing the snow is good enough of course. We could have done with a dump midweek to make the offpiste better, but we couldnt complain with low temperatures and good snow down already.
Not somewhere to go and party, but plenty of choice of places to eat and drink around the slopes.
The hotel du Champoluc was warm and comfortable. Food was variable, some nights good and others average, but you get 1/4 litre of wine thrown in with dinner each, and theres a wide range on the salad bar as well, and desert. No cheese or coffees though.
Breakfast was buffet style with cereals, yogurts, fruit, rolls and bread with ham and cheese and jam, the usual. But the tea and coffee was all from a machine which we didnt like, and the Cappuccino Caribinieri as we christened her would not let you touch the machine yourself!
Ski room with heated boot racks was downstairs and you walked straight out and across to the gondola so all in all it was very good, 8 out of 10.
And I cant finish without a word about Crystal, who the last time I used them we had a dreadful week of food and poor service. I think Crystal do a good job when its not them catering, and our rep in resort, Geoff, was helpful and took the banter very well. He didnt manage to persuade us to have a day in Pila though ;-)