Sector: Les Crêtes
A circuitous trail with long flat traverses and switchback bends, snaking down above
Les 2 Alpes 1800 in order to provide the ‘easiest’ home run to resort.
The Chemin is a dirt track in summer, cut into the mountainside to provide off-road vehicle and mountain bike access; during the winter ski season, as well as serving as a piste, it is also the route taken for evening
snowmobile excursions.
Although the route is viable, it is prone to poor snow cover; its narrow width makes it hard work when the surface is patchy, but when conditions are good it does allow confident beginners to make a full home-run descent.
It starts from the lower end of
Les Crêtes 2100, following the waymarked track towards the junction for the
Valentin piste. Unfortunately, this section is a real bottleneck, particularly towards the end of the day when most people are heading back to the resort. Just after the point where you pass under the last of the overhead chairlifts, the
Valentin drops away to the skier's left; continue traversing straight ahead for the
Chemin des Demoiselles.
The track is well defined and easy to follow, winding its way down languidly towards town. When snow conditions are good enough, advanced-ability riders can take off-piste shortcuts down the slopes between the straights, a route known locally as Les Posettes.
Once you reach the lower hairpin bends, you then have a choice of onward routes: the first is to cross to the lower section of the
Valentin piste in order to link with the traverse track towards the central base-area slopes around place des 2 Alpes;
the second, by the upper terminal of the
Petite Aiguille chairlift (2), is to take the
Petite Aiguille piste to link with
La Côte chairlift (2a), heading across town into the Pied Moutet sector, or to reach the start of the
Mont-de-Lans run to the village of Mont-de-Lans; otherwise, simply remain on the
Chemin des Demoiselles to reach the Grand Place area at Les 2 Alpes 1800 ahead, and/or to continue straight past that towards the
Champamé slope at the northern end of the base-area slopes.
