Description

This is a popular ski tour with a lot of mellow terrain and makes for a good start to getting to know the area.

There are good views of the inspirational queen of the Aravis, Mont Charvin, a difficult, serious but beautiful ski touring peak to aspire to.

The Col de Toulle is mostly easy angled but take care in poor visibility because it would be easy to stray onto steeper ground with terrain traps. From the parking area just nort-east of La Savatte village, skin up the meadow to le Bétex and then further on until you come to a summer track that crosses the valley of the Fours.

Continue skinning up the shallow depression ahead with the Valley of the Fours on your right hand side.

You then reach wide easy terrain before skinning below steep slopes to reach the base of the final slope.

From here continue up to the Col with a steepening halfway, it is worth having couteau (ski crampons) handy in case the snow is firm. Enjoy the magnificent panorama from the top, and look over to further ski touring objectives like la Goenne, and the surrounding mountains.

The descent on this aspect is best enjoyed with fresh snow and cold temperatures, and also under spring snow.

Be prepared to play with the terrain and the different aspects to optimise the snow conditions.

The ski down is the same as the skin up but there is a lot of terrain to play with and with some imagination you could ski variations on the way down or do a second lap on one of the slopes if you have the legs.