It’s the winter hit that Christian Dejax replays without getting tired. The president of the ski touring commission at the French Ski Federation (FFS) counts and recounts the number of routes laid out in the resorts in recent years. “It represents 70 stations and 150 routes in all the massifs, it’s a real ground swell”, rejoices the Isérois, he who knew the time not so long ago when ski touring was reserved for an elite of mountaineers able to venture on unmarked off-piste routes, at their own risk and peril.
→ ANALYSIS. French tourism in the reconquest of winter sports
The figures he puts forward are impressive. At least 200,000 licensees, not counting the very large number of occasional skiers who are not enlisted, around 6 to 7% of the equipment sales market and, above all, an exponential multiplication of the number of routes marked out by ski resorts, which have been able to seize the perch. Paradox of the mountain environment, this adventure began in Courchevel, in one of the resorts most affected by industrialization. “We wanted to fight against our too artificial image”, explains the former mayor and still instructor Philippe Mugnier, who carried out the installation of the first marked routes in 2012.
Spirit of conviviality
“At the start, many people didn’t believe in the resort, they swore only by alpine skiing, but we had formed an alliance with two more mountain village resorts, and the idea of linking these family sites in the forest with our tracks worked very well,” explains the elected official, who never agreed to hold a municipal meeting on Wednesday evening in winter because of the ski touring gathering. “We each climb at our own pace, sometimes there are more than 100 of us, we wait at the top for mulled wine, it’s the conviviality of the mountain”, he says.
Beyond the increasingly prohibitive cost of ski passes to use the ski lifts, it is this mountain spirit and this taste for nature that motivate the growing number of troops. “With the Covid and the closure of the ski lifts in the resort last season, ski touring has been a real success. It’s fallen a bit with the reopening of the slopes this season, but the trend is there, we won’t go back. All alpine skiing is over, the future of resorts is the multiplication of activities »continues Philippe Mugnier.
This new offer targets a clientele that is a little older than the average and also more feminine. “Let’s not forget the fitness side, which is very important, ski touring is the taste of effort in a wonderful setting”, enthuses Christian Dejax, the hiking man at the federation. These new marked and secure routes allow access to the mountains for non-hardened practitioners who are no longer at all frightened by the prospect of descending off-piste, in ungroomed snow. And for good reason: a good part of these routes cross easy alpine ski slopes, even equipment (chairlifts or gondolas) allowing you to overcome a hazardous descent.
A pioneer station
Arêches, a resort-village in Savoie, is the best vantage point for wave hikers. This is where the famous Pierra Menta has been held since 1986, one of the biggest ski mountaineering races, the competitive version of ski touring. (read below). It is there again that the first marked trails were installed at about the same time as those of Courchevel. “Ski touring is the DNA of the resort, we have many groups of experienced hikers who come to ski in the massif, but we have seen these new practitioners arrive, sometimes beginners, who come to try”, explains Florent Signifredi, events manager for the station.
The village has launched courses for children, rental companies play the game by offering equipment for children and families. And it works ! The four routes take a route that is both close to the slopes, to facilitate the intervention of the emergency services, and far from the groomed boulevards to respect the spirit of adventure. A whole art of balance developed in order to give beginners the desire to return to the almost virgin circus of the massif. At high altitude, this time, and independently, or with a guide.
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Ski touring or ski mountaineering?
It’s been twenty years since a competitive version of ski touring was born under the name “ski-mountaineering”, official name since 2008. Unlike ski touring, which is a leisure activity, ski-mountaineering mountaineering is part of the competition, with various timed events. Alongside the major long-distance events through the mountains such as the Pierra Menta organized in Arêches (Savoie), which will be held this year from March 9 to 12 for the senior race and from March 11 to 12 for the youth race, ski mountaineering offers short and spectacular events, such as the sprint (a three- to four-minute climb in sealskin), the vertical (500 to 700 m drop) or the relay. These short races will make their debut on the Olympic program for the next Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, in 2026.