Skiing in La Toussuire in the Sybelles ski area

There is a large ski area that is less often talked about: The Sybelles. The ski resort of The Toussuire is its main station, by its size and its altitude. It is the fourth largest French ski area, with more than 300 kilometers of slopes: that's not nothing.

Located in Savoy, a Mauritian More precisely, the Sybelles area allows you to enjoy high quality skiing in La Toussuire and in the other resorts.

Let’s quickly set off to explore this ski area.

The ski resort of La Toussuire.

On a very sunny high plateau at an altitude of 1750 meters, the ski resort of The Toussuire is located in a central position in the Sybelles ski area.

Accessible from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and its TGV station, by a winding road which crosses small authentic villages such as fontcouverte and gives a nice glimpse of the Aiguilles d'Arves, La Toussuire occupies a vast expanse at the foot of a mountain cirque. The dwellings are rather modern, like those typical of the resorts that sprang up in the 70s and 80s, especially on the snow front and the streets that lead to it from the entrance to the resort. This is where the resort's economic life and tourist activity are concentrated. Moving away from the central core, you come across more modern residences, better integrated into the mountain environment, and many individual houses, most of them in the form of chalets. From La Toussuire, there are two main areas where the ski slopes start.

The snow front whose lifts take skiers to the slopes of the Big Green and at the end of the resort, on the arrival side from Saint Jean de Maurienne, the Chaput chairlift allows you to go back up to Chaput, on the slopes of Big Thing. Which means that unless you are staying right next to the snow front, you will have to plan to take a shuttle or walk a lot to get to the bottom of the slopes.

The Grande Verdette, and its neighboring summit the Tête de Bellard, and a little further the Grand Truc, are the two ski slopes of the Toussuire ski resort. Of course the slopes continue further by switching to the other sides of these same summits.

The road that comes from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, where you will not fail to visit the cathedral (with the relics of Saint John and the tomb of the first of the line of the Savoy dynasty) and the Opinel museum, makes a loop to La Toussuire before going back down to another emblematic station, connected from the beginning to La Toussuire: Le Corbier.

Let’s take a tour of the other ski resorts in the Sybelles area.

Other ski resorts in the Sybelles ski area

The other ski resorts in the Sybelles area are:

Le Corber
Saint John of Arves
Saint Sorlin d'Arves
Saint Colomban of Villards
The Bottières

Among those, Le Corber is the modern type of ski resort: a snow front, buildings on the edge of the forest, parking lots below. It is the choice of simplicity and access to the slopes. From Le Corbier, we go up towards the Pointe du Corbier and we have very easy access to the entire area. Be careful, however, of the return slopes, at the end of the afternoon, sometimes damaged by the passage of skiers.

During the climb from Saint Jean de Maurienne, we could see a sign indicating The Bottières. It is a small hamlet clinging to the mountain, with a few old farms, a few new chalets, and a few recent buildings built in a style in harmony with their environment. At the edge of the forest and in a panoramic position than the Maurienne and the foothills of the Vanoise, Les Bottières allows a more zen entry to the ski area with lifts that take you to the Grand Truc sector, in La Toussuire.

La Arves Valley has kept its traditional character. Saint Jean at 1500 meters and Saint Sorlin at 1600 meters have maintained a village appearance, modernized but not too uglified by unharmonious constructions. The surroundings remain very linked to agricultural activity and the tourist flow is limited by the fact that in winter, the valley is a dead end. In summer, the Col de la Croix de Fer and then the Col du Glandon allow you to switch to other valleys, and in particular to Isère.

Access to the ski area is a little limited on the Saint John of Arves, with a chairlift that goes up to the Corbier ski area. Around Saint Jean d'Arves, in the hollow of the valley, on the banks of the Arvan, there are cross-country ski trails.

Saint Sorlin d'Arves has its own ski area on the slopes of La Balme, a hill at 2240 meters above sea level which dominates the village, and of the Trois Lacs, at 2620 meters, which is also the summit of the Sybelles ski area. From there, the view sweeps 360 degrees, all the nearby massifs (Grandes Rousses, Aiguilles d'Arves, Vanoise) up to Mont Blanc.

A magnificent view, which you can admire by following this link: https://www.sybelles.ski/live/webcams/saint-sorlin-darves/

The connection with the rest of the area is made by crossing the Col de la Croix de Fer by chairlift, to go back up towards the Ouillon, summit of the domain of The Toussuire and Corbier.

Finally, a last valley connected to the area, is the Villards Valley. In summer it is crossed by the road of the Col du Glandon, which leads to the heights between Savoie and Isère. In winter, it is a dead end, but the small village of Saint Colomban of Villards, nestled in its hollow, at an altitude of 1100 meters, has equipped itself with a chairlift that allows you to reach the Sybelles area in just four lifts, up to the summit of Ouillon. A good option to guarantee an authentic holiday, in a real Savoyard village while being connected to the fourth largest French ski area.

Skiing in La Toussuire

We will start from the snow front of the La Toussuire ski resort. Bellard head at 2225 m accessible by chairlift seems like a good start for everyone. The base of the chairlift is reached from the slopes that descend from the Grande Verdette as well. The landscape widens over the Toussuire plateau, the Maurienne valley, the Vanoise, the Montblanc, the mountains of Isère.

You can have fun on the red slopes that go back down. On the way back down, you can possibly make a jump on the side of the Big Thing. To do this, you have to go down to Chaput, then Soleil. Going back up by the Soleil chairlift, you end up reaching the Grand Turc chairlift and you can ski on the beautiful sunny red slopes of this sector. The return is via Soleil, Chaput and up to the base of the Médaille d'Or chairlift.

The other option would have been to slide directly from the Tête de Bellard, to the same chairlift on the snow front, directly via the marmottes terminal slope.

Once at the top of Gold Medal, you are on the Head of Grande Verdette. Which will allow you to switch to a series of slopes and lifts up to Ouillon. This passage is a bit difficult, because there is a lot of waiting for very little skiing. It is essentially a transfer. We leave the ski slopes of La Toussuire.

But at the Ouillon we find ourselves at one of the major unmissable hubs of the ski area of SybellesYou can decide to leave via the Longe Combe trail, towards the Saint Sorlin sector, or via Ouillon 2 towards the Corbier ski slopes.

Discovering the Sybelles ski area from La Toussuire

I advise to go around Saint Sorlin first. For good skiers, the Edelweiss red slope allows you to descend quickly to the village of Saint Sorlin d'Arves. Others will prefer to go back up by the Perdrix chairlift to Petit Perron, enjoy the view of the Aiguilles d'Arves and take the Blanchons and Panoramique slopes to reach the village.

In Saint Sorlin d'Arves, we set off to explore the area of La Balme, the furthest from the La Toussuire ski resort. At Plan du Moulin, the arrival point for all the slopes in the area, head towards the Plan du Moulin Express chairlift. And there you are, at the top of La Balme at 2240 metres. There are a number of nice slopes to discover. Short ski slopes but in a setting free of any habitation.

From the summit of La Balme, a small green slope provides access to the chairlift Three Lakes. We climb to the summit in a few minutes to reach at more than 2600 meters of altitude the highest point of the Sybelles ski area : Les Trois Lacs. This is a particularly pleasant ski area because in a quiet setting, slopes for all levels, blue, red and black, are marked on its slopes to go back down to the bottom of the valley occupied by a chalet restaurant with a very sunny terrace. You can have a really good time in this area. You just have to remember to leave in time for the return to The Toussuire because the waiting time at peak times for returns can be long on the Ouillon side.

By the way, how do you get there? From the top of the Trois Lacs, take the blue Vallons trail to the base of the Eau d'Olle chairlift. This serves as a switch to return to Ouillon.

Skiing in La Toussuire in the Sybelles area — The Toussuire

Instead of taking other lifts to return to the top of the ski resort of The Toussuire , we will prefer the Ouillon 2 descent to go and discover the Corbier slopes. In particular the Combe slope which takes us to the base of the Mont Corbier chairlift. At its summit, on the tip of Corbier, we can play on the ridge which separates us from Saint Jean d'Arves, on the Grande Vadrouille slope and all the red and blue slopes which go back down towards the Vadrouille 1 ski lift. These two lifts allow us to cover a nice part of the ski area.

If you are staying in La Toussuire you can leave this area by going back up to the Pointe de Corbier and going back up to the Ouillon (on the blue run) or go down via the Raccourts to the intersection with the red Frite which will take you to the red Envers. The Liaison ski lift then takes you back to La Toussuire.

Conversely, if you are in La Toussuire and you want to come back or go towards Le Corbier, you will have to take the Côte du Bois chairlift, but then there are only narrow red runs in a small valley: so Attention beginners or less comfortable skiers. They will have to take a shuttle instead. Is there no other way to return from La Toussuire? Yes, via La Grande Verdette and l'Ouillon. But it takes longer. The connection between Le Corbier and La Toussuire in the lower part of the area (Envers and/or Liaison chairlifts) is recommended only for experienced skiers who know how to ski on red runs.

We thus toured the Sybelles ski area, starting from the Toussuire ski resort. An interesting area which extends over 310 kilometers, served by 160 slopes! Thanks to its 68 ski lifts, the six resorts of the Sybelles ski area have access to the upper part of the area. The La Toussuire ski resort at its heart, snowy and sunny, offers optimal skiing conditions, worthy of the largest ski areas.

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