Haute Ubaye Powder Touring Week

6 days Intermediate 4:1 Dates: 29Jan-03Feb '12 Price: £625 Ski Ability: 3+ Fitness: 3+ Experience: You need some previous ski touring experience to join this tour. Included: Guiding Fees and Expenses. Other Costs: Gite nights, food, travel and uplift during the tour ~ £350 Book Online Here

This is a remote early season day touring area, with plenty of north facing descents often skiing on powder snow at this time of year. The week starts and finishes at the Hotel Edelweiss in La Grave. During the week we stay at a lovely Gite in the Haute Ubaye valley, which offers a warm welcome each night, fantastic food and skiing right to the door.

Due to the nature and variety of terrain, touring is possible in the area in most weather and snow conditions.

We run all of our ski tours on a guiding & instruction only basis. Food and accommodation must be paid for seperately. Our recommended hotel and meeting point in La Grave is the friendly and comfortable Hotel Edelweiss** run by British/Dutch couple, Robin and Marlon - who we will happily put you in touch with if you'd like to reserve a room (or the hotel can help arrange a twin room with a fellow course member if you like). You are however free to make other accomodation arrangements if you choose (La Grave also has a number of other hotels, gites and rental appartments available at reasonable prices - see the La Grave website for more details). The guide will book other accommodation during the week - ie the Gite - which you also pay for direct as we go along.

Full travel details are provided with your joining instructions.  La Grave is most easily reached by a low cost flight to Grenoble, then via bus to La Grave. If you choose to hire a car, then driving times to La Grave are about 1.5hrs from Grenoble, 2.5hrs from Lyon, Chambery or Turin and up to 4hrs from Geneva.

To make travel arrangements a little easier for this tour, we are arranging a free Grenoble Airport Pick up at the start of the tour, to coincide with Easyjet flights from Stansted.

We will be picking up at Grenoble Airport on Sat 28th Jan at 17.00pm. If you would like to be picked up at the airport at this time, then just let us know when you book. For the return leg, a transfer bus runs from La Grave on Saturday morning.

You need to be a good off piste skier (see ski ability level 3) able to put linked turns down in powder, with previous ski touring experience in order to join this tour. The week includes 5-7 hour days with generally steady climbs - so you can expect to be skinning for 3-4 hours a day (see fitness level 3).

We will supply you with a full kit list. You are responsible for bringing personal clothing, a rucsac and ski mountaineering skis, boots and kit (local hire is available in La Grave). We are delighted to be working on this tour with Backcountry UK, who provide excellent service and advice as a leading retailer of ski mountaineering equipment in the UK.