an off piste part of the ski touring race

Defi Vertical ski touring race review

A 14km uphill race from 2 Alpes to the top of the glacier

Imprint: By Ian Huyton, Updated 26 June 2017

Saturday saw the first edition of the Les Deux Alpes Defí Vertical – a ski touring race from the town at 1650 metres to the top of the glacier at 3600 metres.

As someone who enjoys ski touring and does the odd trail running race, I thought this was a good opportunity to combine the two and enter my first ski touring race. I arrived at the tourist office at 07:30 to pick up my number, half an hour before the start. Looking around, everybody seemed a lot more serious than me, with a lot of super light skis and lycra in evidence. The event was billed as being suitable for everybody, with options to climb anywhere between 500 and 2000 metres, but most people looked ready to go all the way to the top.

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At the start, there was a smaller crowd than I had expected – under a hundred people, compared to the five hundred who took part in the Night Snowtrail run a couple of months ago. Perhaps ski touring is not as popular as trail running, or perhaps an 8am start the day after Paddy’s night discouraged a few people. At that hour, the skies were clear but the weather was forecast to deteriorate throughout the day.

After a quick briefing, the race started dead on eight o’clock. I had expected a gentle start up the Demoiselles green run, but instead they sent us straight up the front face on the Jandri 1 blue run. The early morning piste was icy, and my skins only just gripped on the steeper bits.

The gradient eased off on the second section of the run and I made good time to the first checkpoint and feed station at the Crêtes. After this the green run towards Bellecombes gave some respite but the runs that have always seemed so flat to descend seemed a lot steeper to walk up. Towards 2600 metres the ascent steepened again, and the first downhill skiers appeared on the slopes around twenty past nine.

The second feed station in the La Toura bowl marked the approximate half-way point of the race, and for me this was where things got a lot tougher. The route got a steeper and there was more downhill traffic to contend with. Just above the junction of Lac Noir and Jandri 4, the route headed off-piste to the right, below the west face of the Jandri peak. It was a relief to get away from the growing crowds on the piste and I appreciated the planning of the organisers. It was a well-designed race to have most of the first half on pistes before the skiers arrived and most of the second half off-piste. Not that the pistes were particularly crowded early on a Saturday morning, but they felt busy when heading in the opposite direction to the traffic.

Over this stage the weather closed in, becoming misty, cold and windy, and the terrain was also harder than the earlier sections. The steep slope demanded difficult kick turns on hard windblown snow and frozen tracks. A few competitors took their skis off and walked up this section. Eventually I reached the start of the glacier and the final feed station at 3200 metres. The weather was worsening and we were told that due to the high winds the finish had been moved down from 3600m to 3400m. At the time, I was quite happy with the news, even though it would have been nice to have skinned right to the top of the resort.

The next fifty metres of ascent were the hardest, crossing steep slopes on difficult snow above the glacier lake before rejoining groomed slopes above. I finally arrived at the finish at 11:45, three and three quarter hours after starting.

It had been one of the toughest events I have done, with 1800 metres of ascent over fourteen kilometres and a very cold last hour. Amazingly, the winning time was under two hours for the whole ascent. Overall, the day was well organised and well planned, but it would be nice to see the attendance grow a little for next year.