Usinng an E-MTB to access back-country skiing, two successful sorties

[GavinB]

Newbie here.

I'm a Brit living in the Hautes Alpes in France, Serre Chevalier, more or less at the bottom of the Col de Granon which will feature in this years Tour de France.

At one end of our valley we have the Col du Lautaret 2,057m and then the mighty Col du Galibier 2,642m and then at the other end the Col d'Izoard 2,630m, with this terrain I've seen the massive rise of E-MTB's popularity over the last five years here, as there are so many trails to access as well the actual legendary roads, as well as the MTB bike parks!

Outside of the Winter months I'm a roadie with the occasional off-road foray on my Whyte T-129 RS.

In the Winter (ski-season) I ski-tour, that's putting skins on the base of your skis and then climb up well away from the resort and people.

The last couple of years had me thinking about the advantages of an E-MTB and how I could travel further to access areas that otherwise would just be too much hard-work to get to.

By hard work I mean 2.5hrs of hiking along a valley floor to just get to the point where you put the skis on to climb up, for another two or three hours.

Currently, in our part of the World the snow-conditions are not good, especially in the back-country / off-piste.

So one weekend I hired an E-FatBike to see how that would work, and learnt quite a few lessons, as to what works and what doesn't.

You can read more about that failure here

However, the seeds were sown, as I was pretty sure I knew what would work, and how best to go about it.

I had Googled ebike / emtb skiing and had seen a number of videos & features, such as the Scott The SK-eRIDE but just got the impression that most had not truly succeeded as there's one underlying problem, in that E-MTBs / E-FatBikes will not work in more than 10cms of soft snow, so route selection is critical and that will also depend on the time of the season and to a greater extent local knowledge.

So in my part of the world in these valleys are often Cross Country Ski and walking trails (skidoos / snow mobiles are not allowed) so the trail is hard-pack snow, ideal for an e-mtb. And even after a fresh snow-fall they will groom the trail for the cross-country trail.

In the Spring the mountain roads will gradually open up, so one could ride up to the snow-line where previously we'd have to hike it from where we could drive to.

So I pulled the trigger on a Orbea Wild HT 20 and have now had two truly memorable days under my belt, though the snow-pack was somewhat technical to ski, and the descent back on the bike was greatly assisted by having a seat dropper and two stabilisers (feet in ski boots) to handle the steepish icy conditions at times

I'd be back out on the bike doing more this week, if I hadn't just tested positive for Covid, hence writing this post.

I've written up a more detailed blog, should you wish to read more, and have some nice GoPro 360 footage, more here

If you have any questions re logistics, of which there are many, feel free to ask.

 

[Semmelrocc]

Thanks for the interesting write-up, and good recovery!

 

[eMullet]

One basic question: If you climb with the bike and shred down with the skis, how do you get to the bike?

EDIT: my bad, so its for the first part of the hike before you can put the skis on with the skins.

 

[GavinB]

One basic question: If you climb with the bike and shred down with the skis, how do you get to the bike?

EDIT: my bad, so its for the first part of the hike before you can put the skis on with the skins.

Yes, I arrive at the bottom of where I want to climb up from, secure the bike, then climb up, take the skins off and ski back down to more or less where the bike is.

 

[Stihldog]

Good write-up. I don’t have the equipment or know how for eMTB downhill skiing but that’s a lot of gear, including locks, to transport up the mountain. I suppose the snow conditions had to be just right for riding especially if you don’t use studded tires. I can only imagine the weight …heck, I have a difficult time packing my knitting needles for the monthly eMTB Knitting Club meeting. ( Rule 18.3; When in the eMTB Knitting Club you don’t talk about the eMTB Knitting Cub). I digress.
I do like the extreme nature of exploring with an eMTB. I’ve gathered a few ideas from your blog.

 

[Mabman]

Cool! We used to use our town bikes bitd in the mtn. town I lived in to access the back country on the snowmobile packed trails up the drainages as well as just to get to the bus stop for powder days on the mtn.. This was before fad tires and assist also. No longer live in that terrain but can see how it would work even better. Never saw any need for studded tires on just packed snow however but they are good on ice flows in the wild and bus routes in town.

 

[Slowroller]

I see that in the US from time to time, primarily in the spring when the lower valleys melt out, but up high, the skiing is still good. I rode up the Croix de Fer a number of years ago in September and watched a guy descending the dirt road from above on a mtb in full AT gear, even his boots Nice part of the world....