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.

Bellevarde · Charvet

Skiing: Guide to assess
Walking: Guide to confirm

A mountain face on the Charvet side of Bellevarde. Warmth and refreezing can transform the snow, so timing is central to the day.

Fredrik’s experience

Above the Charvet run-out

Face du Charvet shares its beginning with Tour du Charvet around Grand Pré, but it is a very different proposition. The approach I described involved a substantial traverse around the Charvet mountain. It brings the skiing above the avalanche-exposed area that makes the finish of Tour du Charvet so serious. That relationship between the face and the valley beneath it is fundamental to how I think about this run.

The right snow, the right moment

This is not somewhere I would choose with uncertainty about either the snow or the avalanche conditions. But catch it in the right snow, at the right moment, and it can be fantastic. Because it is a run I choose much less often, the snow on those occasions can feel exceptionally good. That rarity is part of its appeal. It is steep enough to give me that little flutter in the stomach.

Tracks you can look back at

There is also something very satisfying about the tracks afterwards. Once the descent is done, they are conspicuous on the face, visible both to me and to other people. On the right day it feels like an opportunity worth taking, precisely because it is not an everyday choice.

Consequences all the way to the valley

For me, that opportunity depends on having a guide who knows both when the face is appropriate and where the line goes. The risks are substantial, and the consequences can be greater still. An avalanche here can travel from high on the face all the way to the valley, crossing major cliff drops on the way. Getting caught in that sort of terrain could have extremely serious consequences. The pleasure of the skiing and the satisfaction of seeing the tracks afterwards do not diminish that commitment.

A rare, steep opportunity whose appeal depends on the right conditions and a guide’s judgement.

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