Description

Having woken up to a blisteringly hot day when we were there, after so much snow previously, our planned steep route over Mont Ténibre was clearly not a goer.

This is separately described, and you would definitely not take this route given the choice.

Ideal would be to spend the next night at the Refuge de Rabuons or the Refuge de Vens.

For us it was either wait a day and carry on with that mountain itinerary, or suck it up and take the low valley route.

3 of us had trainers, which was a relief, but to save weight Es had thrown his away a couple of days earlier, so he had to dig pretty deep for the very long section of road walking in ski boots! Initially it was a lovely ski down the snow-covered tracks to Bagni di Vanadio, but road walking down from there, until a hairpin above Pianche at 1020m.

This was a real bonus and allowed us to skin again along a NE facing balcony path, that took us more or less to the sweet village of Pietraporzio and a lovely lunch in the village square.

However from there it is 22km to the hamlet of Maison-Méane, just above Larche, all on road for us.

We walked it all to the Col de Larche, carrying skis, but there would be the option, as marked here, to skin up next to the road, to the L of the zig zags.

You can ski down next to the road more or less all the way to your destination.

The warm welcome at the end of the day was really worth it at a fantastic gite - http://www.chaletdugermas.fr/fr/