“One, two, one, two,” I count rhythmically as I glide along the glistening snow. The soft, velvety silence around me is comforting; far below, the bustle of the French resort of La Plagne feels like a different world, all noise lost on the wind that whispers its way around the peaks.
The sun is beating down, so I pause to strip some layers: I place my backpack down where I stand and take a swig of water, before rolling my jacket tightly and packing it. I feel gloriously tiny and insignificant surrounded by this endless panorama of mountains thrusting into the clear blue sky.
Ski touring offers a different pace, and a chance to get away from the crowds. Photographs: Getty Images; Abigail Butcher; Chris Moran/Intersport
As usual, we’d started out as a gang together but – as always happens with ski touring – once we’d settled into our own grooves we spread out, each working at a different rhythm. Up ahead I see my friend Tom head down, on a mission of mind and body, lost in his own thoughts. Below, Felix and Paul’s quiet chatter is interspersed with loud gasps of laughter, quickly blown away by the breeze.
In a busy life spent hurrying from one place to another, ski touring is so refreshing because it cannot ever be rushed. It’s a mountain meditation, distinct from the adrenaline rush of downhill pistes (fun as that can be). Sliding skis up snowy tracks at altitude – known also as “skinning” – is the best way I know to press pause and find silence. It’s nothing less than a delight.
Exploring the back country in Verbier (left); the Bellecôte glacier in La Plagne. Photographs: Getty Images
I started a decade ago in Verbier, Switzerland, on a dull and cloudy day with such poor visibility that I didn’t want to ski. I was with friends who knew the technique (dragging the ski uphill using your toe, while keeping it on the snow) and had already bought the bindings that allow your heel to lift as you slide uphill, as well as the fake mohair skins that attach to the bottom of your skis and stick on the snow, so I was all set. I didn’t even need a lift pass to zigzag up the side of the nursery piste and then around Verbier’s walking paths, and there was more time to enjoy the scenery than while whizzing downhill. Ski touring is, strangely, far easier than hiking uphill and I fell in love instantly with the whole concept; fresh air and exercise in beautiful surroundings far away from resort crowds.
Ski touring opens up remote locations such as glaciers in Greenland that would be inaccessible to regular skiers. Photograph: JB Buttard
Ski touring began, of course, as the best way to reach untracked peaks, climbing from hut to hut on multi-day tours such as the classic French haute route. A far more environmentally friendly way of “earning your turns” than jumping into a helicopter, not to mention wallet-friendly, too.
Since that first foray, my love for ski touring has boomed, and so has its general popularity, with rental gear widely available and ski resorts posting special routes up their mountains that are closed to downhill travellers. As my experience of uphill skiing grew, so too did my appetite to explore uncharted snowy mountains unaided by lifts. Ten years on and I’ve ski toured in remote parts of Siberia and Greenland as well as the more regular haunts such as Senja in Norway and Hokkaido, Japan.
In La Plagne, ascending the glacier is the ideal way to get away from the crowds and find fresh snow. Photographs: Getty Images; Callum Jelley
But back to La Plagne, and our climb up the two-and-a-bit mile Combe piste on the Bellecôte glacier is rewarded with a 2,000-metre descent in untouched powder. It’s January, and poor snow conditions in lower resorts meant that Paradiski, with its high, snow-sure skiing, is packed to the rafters. Never would you imagine that a simple set of skins, a guide and an appetite for adventure would reward me with a run far away from the crowds. But it did. And that is exactly why I love ski touring.
