Backcountry Skills week 2026 - Valfrejus, Haute Maurienne Valley

Glorious - the view from the top of Col Des Hautes toward Termignon

Sometimes the best lines don’t need an epic 5 hour skin to get to - taking the Fournache chair to the top of Aussois, at 2700m on a gorgeous sunny 24th March, we only need to put in a trifling 2 hour shift - including time for snacks, and hints and tips, of course - for everyone to top out on the Col Des Hauts at 2958m. And from here we have a dramatic sight - a variety of entrance chutes, weaving between sentinels of jagged rock, opening up into a gorgeous east-facing valley holding exactly what we came for: north-facing slopes protected from the heat of the afternoon sun, and 1500m of glorious descent to come.

The choice of this valley, at this time of day, at this time of year, with these projected weather and snow conditions, was the result of a joint planning session we all took part in the last night after dinner. We discussed the pros and cons of several alternative routes, in other parts of the Haute Maurienne Valley, and here we are - standing above this epic panorama, buzzing with anticipation.

For many, being able to get to this sort of place was a big part of why they chose to attend Backdrop Journal’s Backcountry Skills week - learning basic backcountry travelling skills, and meeting like-minded people to ride with.

Backdrop's Backcountry Skills Week ~ 3-10 April 2027

View from top of thte Fournache lift in Aussois, up to the saddle of the Col Des Hautes

We’ve got such a great group this year, from all over the place - Poland, the Czech Republic, France, the UK and Spain. Mostly new faces, but some have joined us again for the week, and during the week other friends and faces from previous years pop in and join for a day or two. It’s a really great vibe, everyone getting along super well.

It’s also our first year opening this workshop up to our skiing brethren, and they are having a great time here too - most of the skills and on-hill touring techniques are the same - just done with skinnier pants.

We are based in a cool place too, for the first time, we are at the Bodygo hostel in the small resort of Valfrejus - small resort maybe, bursting with freeride and backcountry touring options. The rooms in the hostel are basic, but the communal area is stylish and huge, with great shared-cooking facilities, restaurant and bar area, lounging space, and a massive terrace. Plus, a ski shop very conveniently below, for those like me who manage to rip a chunk out of their base. It’s also handily next to a bar with a steam-room/sauna complex in its basement - which some of us avail ourselves of, to relax-off tired touring muscles. It works a treat.

Our routine is: come in from a day on the hill, chill out and freshen up, have dinner (included in the package, with breakfast), then get down to discussing key aspects of safe-travel on the mountain with our guides, and using that, plus planning tools like maps, weather forecasts, avalanche and snow-condition advisories, to plan out options for the following days.

Our lead guide is Sylvain, from Altitude guides, from this very valley, ably supported by Guillaume. The Altitude crew are old friends of Backdrop now, having worked with us on these workshops for a 3rd year in a row. All passionate snowboarders, they do guide on skis, but they much prefer to ride.

They are staying with us in the hostel too, which gives us all a lot of quality time together - and plenty of opportunity to bug them with questions we didn’t think of during the planned evening sessions.

Each day is built around a chosen route (with backup options), and while we are out there we take the time to compare what we actually see and feel, to how we thought it’d be like in our discussions after dessert. Our guides, and the Backdrop crew, are always ready with tips and observations - on splitboarding and skinning technique, terrain and snowpack, and pontificating on top music choices and the best cheeses available in the valley, whether you solicited that opinion or not.

We also incorporate avalanche rescue scenarios - some serious digging - into some of the routes, take breaks in appropriate spots to dig snow-pits to talk about what we see going on with the snow layers, and what that all means for the route we are on and how that might impact our decisions for the following days.

Weather-wise, we are getting the full range this week - howling gales and almost white-out on the exposed upper slopes of Termignon, while trying to transition for the piste ride down - excellent conditions for learning how to not let your skins blow into the next valley - through to hot, sweaty, blue-sky skinning days.

We have a range of snow conditions also: Really deep on a lot of higher, N and NE-facing aspects - our main targets; hard crust lurking underneath a foot of pow, requiring good ‘bend-ze-knees’ technique; right through to spring snow on southerly aspects on some hot afternoons, and of course, plenty of crud. We don’t get too much of a snow-fall top-up while here, but apart from hitting the odd ‘shark’ - a rock lurking invisibly under the surface (well, mainly me, I’m famous for getting ‘bitten’ by those, so that others don’t have to) - the base was great and each day we find deep, untracked pow to shred.

We have 5 days guided touring, and one day off. The weather on our day off is super murky, so we just do half a day lift-riding in Valfrejus resort, and the highlight is really the vin chaud and chocolat chaud avec myrtille we have in the comfort of a refuge.

Apart from the big Aussois valley itinerary, other routes we tackle are:

Climbing the couloir under La Bella Plinier, on the back-side of the La Norma resort (right next to Valfrejus)
The spectacular Grand Vallon on the back-side of Valfrejus
A freeride day around Valfrejus, when the weather closed in, preventing touring but making the slack-country a blast.
The descending the ‘Military couloir’, in Valfrejus - notched into the back of a prominent outcrop in the middle of Valfrejus - a spectacular NW facing and wide, couloir. Not the very best of snow conditions in it, but excellent for practicing control in steep terrain.