Croix des Buts, France

Another sunny day ... there was some forecast of clouds, but they were only around the high peaks. There was a trail that ran up the river from the village and then followed the lower ridge into the valley above the ski station at Le Plan.
We (Chris, M-J, Steph and I) walked to the bottom of the field opposite where we parked the vans and got set up to go. then set off up the slopes - hard snow with a big crust...  keeping the snow around even though it was bare in some places.

Higher up the field which narrowed as the main road to the col des Aravais hairpins brought it close. Also the chalets that bounded it marked off parts of the field.
The other obstacle was the many bare patches where the snow had cleared. However there was still a passage through them all.

The first disruption to the snow came with a track heading into the woods and some skinning on bare ground and a trip through the  trees to keep to the snow trail.

It was around here where we got shouted at by someone for getting too close to their horses grazing on the clear patches.
Then some more thin trails to cross the blank areas.

Above these houses the next set of fields opened out and made for easier progress, we picked up a track zigzagging up the edge of the trees, cutting some of the corners.
We ended up on the high level track traversing across the high pasture into the valley

The track moved into the trees for a while, before coming o the other side into more high level pasture.

after a few turns around the streams running down left to right, and we could see the chalets above of the hamlet and the croix des buts sitting on top of one of the bumps.

The track was extremely hard packed but many walkers and snow shoes and an occasional ski. coming back down would be "interesting"

The final ascent to the top of the little bump above the croix.  this gave views over to Mont Blanc and also to the ski area on the other side of the valley.

Panorama view at the lunch stop.

Lunch and then stripping the skins off and locking down for the descent.

The open pasture was a good ski and not too much hard pack with a little "sluff" on top to help control.

Some obstacles to be over come ....  it was near this jump where I was crossing a stream and my right hand pole made a snapping sound and collapsed.  I was concerned that the bottom section has broken off, and searched back to find it - even looking deep into the stream. Resigning to half a pole, the bottom half ran out ... all I had lost was the end piece and the snow bind.  much better given that all the snow was hard and the bind not much use.

After the benefit of the upper pastures we were back on the track ...  skiing to one side of the train tracks - to be in them was to speed up.
There were two streams to cross ... the first was a sheet of ice, and the second a series of concrete slabs.
in between more of the track.

Off the track and back on the lower pastures ..  at the top more "open" skiing with some narrowing sections,
then we had to cover more bare areas ..  only having to take the skis off for the section avoiding the trees.
The lower sections looked worse than they really were and only small parts of grass skiing.

The end of a day of reconnoiter ... another day where going high woudl have been in the cloud but making use of the lower opportunities paid off.