Setting off with our Ski Host
Every Saturday morning in Montgenèvre, it’s time to complete the Six Peaks Challenge, which involves skiing the entire resort and some of our favourite runs by lunchtime with one of our hosts!
We normally get a good selection of guests from the Chalet Elise and the Chalet Lucille. We set off promptly at 9:15am to get the Chalmettes chondola lift, which offers the speediest way up the mountain to ensure maximum efficiency. We then head down into ‘the bowl’ to take the Observatoire chairlift, which takes us to our first peak.
The pisteurs are very diligent in Montgenèvre and so for our first run of the day we take the Observatoire blue, which is beautifully groomed and untouched by the time we get there. This is a lovely blue run with rolling cambers, which allows you to really practice those carving turns! Part of the challenge is to take a group selfie at the top of every peak as well.
The Gondrans chairlift
Next we take the Gondrans chairlift up into the centre of the bowl. Once at the top, you can walk up a few metres and admire the sweeping mountain landscape overlooking the Briançon valley.
The next run we do is either the boardercross run, which is always fun to try and race a partner down, or alternatively there is a lovely rolling red run with many undulations.
Ensuring maximum efficiency, we take the button lift back up to the top of Gondrans. We then head down a lovely wide green run and peel off to the right to take the Crete chairlift to halfway up Eagle's Rock.
There has previously been some debate as to whether this is actually another peak, but we have firmly established that the top of the Crete chairlift is just a ridge and not a peak!
The new Rocher de L’Aigle gondola
We then head down to the brand new Rocher de l’Aigle gondola lift, which only takes a mere 5 minutes to whizz you up to the French-Italian border! For those of you who have skied Montgenèvre before, you’ll remember that this used to be a long and arduous chairlift taking at least 10 minutes, so the new lift is a vast improvement and looks like it's come straight out of Val d’Isère.
Once at the top of Eagle's Rock, we wave goodbye to France and look over to Italy. The Italians aren’t quite as efficient at grooming their pistes and so our host will usually have a quick peek at the black run to see if it’s looking good! If it’s looking a bit mogully, we’ll take the red run round to Italy instead.
Drop down into Italy
As we drop into Claviere, we have a lovely wide sweeping red which takes us onto a blue run through the forest and eventually down to the Serra Granet chairlift. This lift has a mid-station and so care must be taken with your poles, as this station is renowned for leaving skiers with broken poles! At the top of this chair, we can conquer our fourth peak at the top of Claviere.
We then drop over to the far edge of the piste map, halfway down to Cesana. There we find a very cosy coffee spot with some very reasonably-priced espressos and very thick Italian hot chocolates! For those who require an extra boost in the morning, a Bombardino can be sampled here, which is a specialty Italian mountain drink which contains hot advocaat with rum and a load of whipped cream.
Time for Coffee
After our coffee break, we then head down into Claviere and take the Col Boeuf chairlift back to the French-Italian border. At the top, we then turn right and ski back into France along a snaky red run amongst the trees. We then go under a bridge and arrive at the Serre Thibaud chondola, from which we are taken up to the sunny side of Montgenèvre and our fifth peak!
Le Chalvet peak
We then ski round the blue piste and arrive at the next bordercross run, and we set off in pairs and race each other down. At the end, we arrive at a drag lift that takes us up to the top of Le Chalvet, which is our sixth and final peak! We then head back down the black run and finish up at Les Terrasses restaurant.