Yesterday we did a road trip to a resort that's not on too many Brit's radar.
We decided on Orcières Merlette as we had to drop our dog off at the Super Vet in Gap at 08:00 and then collect him at 17:30 so a ski trip was the obvious thing to do in that time.
I'd done a bit of research and Orcières Merlette seemed the obvious choice at 1,850m as we had our daughter with us, so ski-touring was not viable. The recent snow also made me wonder what potential, judging by the maps, the station could offer.
Have to admit to being a tad disappointed on our arrival as it was very skied out, but the day before was a Wednesday and many are able to ski mid-week and Gap is only 50mins away.
I've not skied in a new resort for a while, but I soon sniffed out stashes and I think we were in luck when a lift opened that was not open the day before, and I still had plenty of untracked to ski when I headed back to see the family at around 14:00.
And you can see the chairlift was not exactly busy!
Then after a quick refreshment, I went exploring again, and found some interesting terrain, and opted for some slack-country, a short 20min skin that gave me a lovely untracked line.
Like I said above it's good to sniff out where some of the better terrain can be, and the whole of Orcières has massive potential, although South facing it summits at close to 3,000m.
On the other side of the valley is some great touring and the small station of Ancelle.
A little video of some Orcières Merlette slack-country
I did have a long chat with a local instructor going up on a lift, and he said that they do not have too many FreeRiders and good skiers, so there's always plenty of off-piste to be had. I should also add that on the whole the majority of terrain was what I would class in the safer category, in fact I don't think any of the people I saw off-piste were carrying avy kit, but that is so often the case in smaller French resorts.
But again, the slack/side country potential is massive, along with the ski-tour potential, as it's right on the edge of the Ecrins.
In fact from the top lift it's only a short climb to the Col de Freissinières ou d'Orcières, and then if you had the logistics sorted a superb line down to Freissinières.