Campanules: off-piste skiing in Tignes · Val d’Isère Field Guide

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These are ideas for professionally guided outings, not route directions. Beyond the marked pistes, avalanches, cliffs and glacier hazards demand specialist judgement. Choose the day’s route with an appropriately qualified local professional; carry a transceiver, shovel and probe and know how to use them.

Icons describe terrain, skiing demands and walking, including route variants. Skiing labels are descriptive, not official grades. Open terrain describes the landscape, not the snow conditions; a missing terrain icon does not mean that feature is absent.

Photographs from Fredrik’s collection. Photo credits.

Tovière · Val Claret

Skiing: Steep slopes
Walking: Guide to confirm

Close to the lifts, steep slopes give Campanules a sharper edge on the Tovière side of Tignes. The classic off-piste sector shares its name with marked runs nearby; the terrain described here lies beyond those signed runs.

Fredrik’s experience

A classic on the way into Tignes

Campanules is another classic that I think of as a run on the way to other runs in Tignes when coming over from Val d’Isère. The lift brings you up to Tovière, with the big bowl off to the left of the piste as you look downhill. It is a fairly obvious piece of terrain when you are up there.

A bowl with several lines

The approach I know involves a long traverse across the bowl, with a choice of places to turn down towards Tignes. That choice is part of the appeal: there is more than one line down this mountainside.

Steep ground and a busy descent

It is steep, though, and avalanche danger is the thing to keep in mind. The descent also finishes in a terrain trap. Being able to see the bowl and reach it easily does not take away the consequences of a slide.

This is a very heavily skied run, so there are often plenty of tracks. In my experience, going farther along the traverse can sometimes leave you a corridor of snow of your own. That is the attraction, provided the line and the crossing make sense in the day’s conditions.

The steep bowl, traverse and terrain-trap finish need assessing together with your guide.

Sources

Campanules

Video supplied by Fredrik · No sound

A skier descends a broad sunlit snow slope marked with curved ski tracks; another skier watches from the foreground near the end.