Randonnée en raquettes

This is the activity we suggest most often to families where part of the group does not ski, and the one we are thanked for most on their return. Snowshoeing asks nothing of you: if you can walk, you will manage within ten minutes. Val d'Isère has the Manchet valley in its favour, running from the resort up towards the high mountains without a single lift crossing it, you are alone within a few hundred metres, which is rare in a resort this size. Lower down, the Fornet forests are the bad-weather alternative: the trees shelter you from the wind and the light stays readable there when the top of the mountain is in cloud. Two formats are worth knowing: the morning outing, when the snow is untouched and you read the animal tracks, and the late-afternoon one that ends by head-torch under the stars, that one stays with children. We can have lunch brought up halfway round and drive the group back down if legs give out.