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

Couloirs
Open terrain
Skiing: Experienced off-piste skiers
Walking: Short, steep walk

A short climb adds a sense of occasion before a steep couloir opens onto a broad face above the village. The view is part of the attraction, but this is a committed choice for experienced off-piste skiers.

Fredrik’s experience

A climb worth preparing for

For La Table, the outing begins at the top of the Olympique lift. I associate the start of the climb with the ski-patrol buildings and a groomed service track leading higher up Bellevarde. This is a proper walk rather than a couple of steps away from the lift: in my experience, at least twenty minutes, and steep enough to deserve some preparation.

I take the skis off and put them on the backpack, loosen or remove a layer and start slowly. There is no point charging into the climb and filling the legs with unnecessary effort before the skiing has even begun. The first part is on snow. Roughly halfway up, in the approach I remember, the climb changes to a metal-grating staircase used by the patrol to reach the weather installations. That staircase is a distinctive part of the experience of getting above the ordinary lift-served bustle.

Above the Olympic start

Up near the summit is the old Olympic start associated with the 1992 Games. Up there, spare a thought for the downhill racers who launched themselves onto Bellevarde. Looking down makes their achievement feel extremely impressive. The old start is extraordinarily demanding-looking; it is one of those places where the history of the mountain becomes very tangible.

A breather before the view

The approach then continues along the top, beyond the buildings and infrastructure, to the entrance of La Table. I like to take a short breather before the descent: recover from the climb, have a drink, cool down a little and get properly ready to ski. The view is dizzying. There is a strong sense of standing above a very large amount of space.

The corridor and the open face

The skiing starts steeply and immediately, in a narrow corridor that I described as around forty degrees. For me, the opening is about controlled jump turns, with little room to be casual. After a while the corridor opens out. I remember rock features on either side and in the middle of the wider ground that can help a guide assess regrouping options; I would not assume that any of them automatically provides shelter.

Below that constricted beginning, the scale changes completely. The run opens into the terrain I know as Cairn, and the open slopes feel enormous. There are variations towards the Spatule area on the back of Bellevarde, but most of the time my descent has come back towards the Face piste and rejoined it. Other lines continue through the forest all the way towards the valley, though I regard those as another run. For me, La Table is the full sequence: the steep walk and staircase, the Olympic history, the startling view, a narrow and controlled beginning, and then all that space opening underneath.

The climb, metal staircase and old Olympic start are part of the outing; the narrow opening gives way to the broad Cairn terrain.

Sources

New Generation

Explore the guide

La Table d’Orientation

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