International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) Alps Ski touring destination for late March?

[charlier]

@Slim - northern Italy is looking better. My friend Marika @ Catinaccio crossing. Thanks God I was born in the Dolomites

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[DanishRider]

La Thuile might be the best bet in Italy right now - Maybe worth investigating?

 

[Rod9301]

'Northern Italy' is quite big though... Anyway - any guide will be better suited to answer your question than I am. At least your question about good places to go touring. I can only speak to the snow cover (from 1000 km away, that is haha).

Alagna has great touring.

 

[Slim]

Alagna has great touring.

But no base see the video screen shot a few post higher. Dramatic!

 

[Slim]

Right know I have 2 guides who said they are available:
1 based out of Aosta or 1 based out of Cervinia.
Both regions have more terrain than we could ski in years.
Aosta seems like a nicer town.
But, ultimately it’s about the snow.
So where is the best combination of base and incoming snow?

current snow depths:


Forecast through Thursday:

 

[fatbob]

Western Alps getting slammed at the moment as your map shows. You might think hard about rail tunnel routes and hitting up the Haute Savoie or Valais etc.

 

[James]

I’ve got nothing for you on Italy. I can only give a little on the 4Vallées in the Valais region, based on being there 19-26Feb. You definitely want altitude. There wasn’t a lot of snow, but there was enough. Esp if you went back country. The big issue was the warmth. I used spring gloves the whole week. Cold would be -4 to -6, maybe even -8C, but that’s 3000m. Down at 1000-1500m, it could go from 0 to +11C, depending on day and time. But there really wasn’t slush/corn snow unless pretty low, and in the sun. However, refrozen even up 2000-2500m could be a problem.

At the time, it didn’t look like enough snow on the Bec des Rosses to hold the FWT finals, but there was over a month to go, and that's a lot of rock to cover.

Looking off the backside of Mt Fort, there looks like there’s enough snow for decent touring. The sun is the big factor.

It did get colder the day we left. I also talked with a guy in the airport who did heli touring out of Verbier,(flying from Savoleyeres). They had some good stuff, but sometimes skinning up in the heat was rough.

View from 3,300m, 21Feb


Bec des Rosses in middle ground.


Looking down from the near side tram deck above^. There should not be moguls like that.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a shot off the backside.

Bec des Rosses in “perfect condition”, from wikipedia-

 

[Slim]

Thanks for the detailed info @James.
@fatbob, good point.
I’m wondering how much snow will ‘spill over‘ the alpine crest into NW Italy.
of course, if need be, there is the Mount Blanc tunnel at the end of the Aosta valley.

 

[James]

We drove over La Forclaz pass- the route between Chamonix and Switzerland. 19Feb. You get a long distance view of the Mer de Glace in Argentiere. (Les Grands Montets) It looked like there was snow back up in there. But that area is popular.

@Slim - northern Italy is looking better. My friend Marika @ Catinaccio crossing. Thanks God I was born in the Dolomites

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Nice to see a guide ski like that. She’s still using her gs foundation.

 

[Swiss Toni]

A fair amount of snow fell on the Italian side of the Main Alpine Ridge https://www.slf.ch/en/avalanche-bul...avalanche-bulletin/division-into-regions.html (waves have crests, mountains have ridges) in the Aosta valley region over the course of the last 3 days.

There isn’t that much ski touring around Cervina and although Aosta is nice town it’s some way from the snow. I would look at the Grand-Saint-Bernard area https://www.gulliver.it/en/skialpgsb/valle-daosta/skimo/ The Aosta mountain guides should be able to organize everything for you.

The Centro Funzionale website has lots of info on snow and weather https://cf.regione.vda.it/home.php including a weather outlook until the end of the month https://cf.regione.vda.it/previsioni_mensili.php The Valle d'Aosta tourist office website has some info on ski touring https://www.lovevda.it/en/sport/ski-touring some of the ski touring routes in the Aosta valley are shown on the Swiss Topo Snow Sports map https://tinyurl.com/bdfdhphu enter Pass Col du Grand Saint-Bernard (VS) - Bourg-Saint-Pierre in the search box.

 

[Slim]

@Swiss Toni ,

Thanks again for the info.

I do beg to differ about terminology though! One of my favorite mtb trails I have ridden is the Wasatch Crest Trail in Utah, far from any oceans

I am just waiting to hear back from the guiding office in Aosta, where they recommend we stay. The first itenrary they suggest has us starting in Thumel (Val di Rhemes).

Still, staying in Aosta itself, doesn’t seem bad. We would arrive Sunday afternoon and have that afternoon and evening to walk around and relax.
Then on Monday we would have some more travel, either by car (guide’s or taxi) or some lifts, to get up into the snow for a warm up day tour, and in the evening sample the town again for dinner and drinks.

From Tuesday onwards we‘d be staying in the huts, so it wouldn’t matter much where we stayed beforehand.

 

[charlier]

We drove over La Forclaz pass- the route between Chamonix and Switzerland. 19Feb. You get a long distance view of the Mer de Glace in Argentiere. (Les Grands Montets) It looked like there was snow back up in there. But that area is popular.



Nice to see a guide ski like that. She’s still using her gs foundation.oral

Good call @James and she skis with a heavy guides pack. She won National’s, twice, in her NCAA division. Many years ago..

 

[Swiss Toni]

The Val di Rhemes is on the south side of the Valle d'Aosta, it’s the valley that is showing a snow depth of 36 cm on the map above, as you can see the south of the Valle d'Aosta didn’t get as much snow as the north side. Thumel is at the end of the road, depending on road conditions it will take 45 min to 1 h to drive there from the center of Aosta, it’s the starting point for several ski tours https://www.gulliver.it/sci-alpinismo/?search=filter&geo=city&s=Rhêmes-Notre-Dame

If you are staying in huts for part of the week then staying in Aosta will be fine for the first day or two, it would get a bit tedious if you had to travel from there to the start of your tour each day. Aosta is a nice town and there is lots to see. If the guides don’t come up with some suitable accommodation there are details of the available accommodation on the Valle d'Aosta tourism website,

There is a gondola that takes you up to Pila from Aosta, the bottom station is near the railway station. It might be worth looking at tours from there for you first day https://www.gulliver.it/sci-alpinismo/?search=filter&geo=city&s=Gressan

Looks like both crest and ridge are used in the US, here ridge is almost always used in English.

 

[Nobody]

@Slim
Coming in late
I discovered this thread only now, sorry (had I known you were landing in Milan...@ my home mountain there is a nice tour offer, both for day trips and for multiple days, maybe not to keep one busy for a whole week, but maybe yes, in March and April plenty of people skinning around the Adamello area (that means above 2800 mt a.s.l and up), snow was enough to llow some touring, not plenty of pow, but enough snow to get around (a traditional multi day rout is : take the cable cars from Passo Tonale to Presena Peak, ski down to Rifugio Mandrone, then skinning up to Rifugio Lobbia Alta/Caduti all'Adamello, then traversing the glacier to the Adamello peak proprely said, and to "Cresta Croce" and to the WWI Gun therearound, get back to Rifugio Lobbia or cross the Pisgana Galcier and ski down back to Ponte di Legno. Get a guide who will organize it all or at least check whether the refuges are opened or you risk having to spend the night out in the cold, not adviceable)
Anyhow, check out :

Mountainguides.italy, based in Ponte di Legno (see also their FB page)

Skiing, Climbing & Biking In The Italian Alps - Mountain Guides Italy

Private instruction and guiding at every level from easy climbs offpiste skiing days and ice climbing courses to the more demanding multipitch rock climbing ascents steep skiing and multi day ski touring trips

mountainguidesitaly.com

And
Powrock

https://www.powrock.com/sp/en/lp/ponte-di-legno-tonale-mountain-guides.3sp




Great reading, though!
But...enquiring minds would like to know...how has it gone?

 

[Zirbl]

Ah crap, sorry, I've only just seen this too, despite being tagged in it. I now share @Nobody 's curiosity.

 

[Slim]

Ah crap, sorry, I've only just seen this too, despite being tagged in it. I now share @Nobody 's curiosity.

International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) - La Dolce Vita, or: skiing is not the most important

As I mentioned in several other threads, my wife and I took a trip to Italy in March. Originally, we were going to meet up with friends from Holland, for a week of skiing in Italy. In the end they were unable to make it so, it was just the two of us. From home, we flew to Milan. Starting off on...

www.skitalk.com

 

[Zirbl]

International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) - La Dolce Vita, or: skiing is not the most important

As I mentioned in several other threads, my wife and I took a trip to Italy in March. Originally, we were going to meet up with friends from Holland, for a week of skiing in Italy. In the end they were unable to make it so, it was just the two of us. From home, we flew to Milan. Starting off on...

www.skitalk.com

Oh, that was you. Magnificent report I thoroughly enjoyed, thanks.

 

[Nobody]

Second that. Very nice reading!
And to think that, at one point in time and space, you were roughly 30 km from where I live...