L'Ecot tour1, France

M-J was still feeling her ribs that had kept her out of action since the first day, so Chris headed down the valley for 2 hours to get to the hospital at St. Jean de Maurienne, so I took the easy option for the us (especially with a novice in tow) and chose to go up the tourist track to L'Ecot ... this way I could keep everyone together and under control.
This left from the bottom of the lift to the ski area and headed up the bottom of the valley to the col.

The track was not very steep and followed a windy route up the bottom of the valley, before the final "step" up to the col.  plenty of room to walk two or three wide.

There were however some interesting side lines ...  the snowed in truck, and ice crystals in the holes..

there was also some cross country skiers, who skated up the track then charged back down again ("I have NO brakes" style)

The wind trails off the peaks was also quite impressive looking around as we reached the col. ..
It was also fascinating to see the route to the hut Bryon and I had taken many years before when it was all hidden in cloud.

We also cam across a couple of Skidoos ..  one delivering a child to one of the buildings and the other two skiers who we presume descended into Italy.

It was too early to stop for lunch  ...  So I chose to head up through the village and towards the sun line on the slopes above ..  there were a number of tracks (mainly down hill) but enough to show it being safe.

I ended up aiming for a large boulder nicely in the sun, but also with a good view and route back down to the track - albeit over the meadows and gentle slopes.

At lunch, I some how altered the white balance on my camera ... so the shots of the down hill sections are all over exposed..

After lunch we skied the excellent light top over harder base down the slope to the bottom of the bulge the village sat on at the top of the valley. then cut back to the track via a bridge.
A remember-able incident where passing a house deep in a snow drift with a guy shovelling snow from the roof had a dog chasing each shovel full going over the side.

Back down the track with a few excursions to the side to play in the light and fluffy stuff, before the bottom end poling to return.

then following the route back to the chalet from the first day.