End of season ski tour up Mont Miravidi.

The chalet is cleaned and closed, staff have gone. The lifts aren't running and the building work has started in the village. Summer is fast approaching.

Perfect then for a ski tour trip.

With the snow line higher than normal it is a perfect opportunity to visit the harder to reach parts of the valley. A trip to the heli ski drop zone on Mont Miravidi via a couple of its cols was soon agreed on. To save the early start and to add an extra bit of adventure we decided to camp as close as we could get to the starting point.

The drive to reach our camping spot was an adventure in its self. Turning off the Bourg St Maurice - Comet de Roseland road at Bonneval-les-Bains we headed towards Versoye. The road became single track with some hairy drops off the side. As you go higher it gets no better, the drops just get bigger. We followed the road as far as possible, the snow patches stopping us just short of where we would idealy like to have got to, Chalet Rullier.

After a scout around we found a spot out of the wind to pitch the tents. Tea on, tents pitched, bags sorted for the morning. Admire the stars and then turn in for the night and try and get some sleep before the 5.15am alarm call.

After a cool night with some sleep the alarm got us up. A good breakfast, more tea then tents down and packed away in the car. Now the hard work starts. It was 6.30am by the time we set off. We followed the road down and over the river then chose a line up the opposite bank so that we ended up  in the correct valley heading for the Col des Rousses. We hit snow and got onto our skis at 2300m. From there it was a straight forward plod up to the col. Due to a good freeze overnight we needed ski crampons.

As we crested the Col des Rousses we had a great view.

We then hiked the ridge and had a short ski traverse of the Miravidi glacier on great spring snow before putting our skins back on and climbing to the summit.

From the summit we chose to descend via the Col des Veis.

The ski down was superb. The spring snow was smooth and just softening in the mid day heat. The route was fun to ski with a few interesting route finding problems.

After a while the snow ran out and it was shoes back on. The walk down being the hardest part of the day. With tired bodies and heavy packs the sparodic snow cover and damp grass made it a hard walk.

 The car had never looked so good. 7hrs round trip, 1337m of ascent and a great day out.