Col du Pre, France

The day was overcast and not really conducive for riding the lifts .. we had gone out on Sunday, but that was the first day, and we had been granted some better ones since.

So after a couple of hours I got cabin fever and decided to try a route from a new book for this trip covering 50 ski tours around Albertville. We headed up to a little village above Areches, where we parked the van and got ready.

Steph had decided to try touring for the first time, so I altered the bindings on my spare set of skis and added some glue to the skins. Then together with Chris and M-J we headed off up the un-cleared road.

After a short period this turned out into a forest track, but did not really gain any height.

We worked our way around the valley to the other side, where we just about managed to gain height into the cloud.

The clouds limited the visibility to around 100m. So we depended on the previous plentiful tracks to gauge where we were.

Eventually we came to what the guide said was a traditional Savoire farm house.

What I had not understood from the guide was that at this point we should leave the main track and head into the forest.

However we stayed on the track and followed it around into a clearing and then went up the slope ...  grateful to be finally gaining some height.

We were roughly right .. as we climbed up besides the forest, but this was a circle further out.

After a while we cut into the forest, and followed a well used path, with a few ups and downs. And then we reached a sign showing the col 50m height below and a km away.  we then studied the map and saw where we were and had gone wrong.

Rather than follow the path down on a slight gradient we chose to find a place for lunch and then turn back

Lunch over it was time to head back down the track through the woods ..  a little extreme in places as it was quite icy and no room for error, but it was not long before we were out on the slopes and making turns in the powder.

On this slope, hidden in the flat light and low visibility, were a number of sink holes ...  I tested my bindings again when I dived into one by mistake.

My boots by some magic were now feeling good and I had a "proper" feel to them. Mistakenly I believed I had fixed the problem... unfortunately tomorrow would proved differently.

After the slopes we were back on the track, and down past the farm house, before polling and slowly making our way back to the van.

Tomorrow we would see a different view of where we had been, and where we had gone wrong ... but regardless the day was fun