From Piste to the Hut: Progression Camps in Serre Chevalier

This zone is made for skiers who want to get after it. Everything you need to build your skiing, from tree runs to touring routes, sits within a single valley. The ski area runs the length of the Guisane Valley in the Southern French Alps, linking four villages (Briançon, Chantemerle, Villeneuve and Le Monêtier) across around 250km of skiing.

Larch forests climb high up the slopes, giving you somewhere to ski, weave, and progress when the light goes flat. Above them sit open bowls, and the resort’s north-facing aspects help the snow hold, with around six metres falling in an average season.

It’s also quieter than the better-known names in the Alps, so off-piste lines stay untracked for longer. Just beyond the valley sit La Grave and the Écrins backcountry, where the bigger days on our camps head.

Flow and confidence. Our All-Mountain Series is built around skiing the terrain between and beyond the pistes with the same control and commitment you have on them. That’s what all-mountain riding really means: the ability to go anywhere and adapt to whatever the mountain throws at you, alongside a like-minded crew of new mates.

Best for: intermediate to expert skiers ready to explore the trees, bowls and steeps beyond the piste, whether as a next step in their progression or to add more finesse.

What you’ll work on:

• Line choice: reading a slope and picking a way down before you drop in
• Speed control: skiing steeper ground without it running away from you
• Trees and bumps: rhythm, absorption and quick decisions
• Variable snow: staying loose and adjusting, from crust to chop to powder

The week at a glance:

• Day 1: arrive and settle in
• Day 2: a half day to find your bearings and start on technique
• Days 3–4: trees, bowls and short bootpacks into new zones
• Day 5: an away day to La Grave, Queyras or Cesana, depending on where the snow is best
• Days 6–7: more targeted coaching, building on everything so far
• Day 8: final goodbyes and departure

Coaching runs in close-knit groups of six, so the feedback stays focused and you ski with others at your level.

Explore All-Mountain Series

“The coaching was the highlight – went over everything, catered for everyone, did bumps, off-piste and technical skiing.”

Fiona Jeffery-Sinclair, All-Mountain Camp

Mileage and depth. A week can move your skiing on, but a month changes it. Over four weeks you repeat new movements across changing snow and terrain until they hold up without thinking, and you see the mountain in every mood, from storm days in the larch trees to bluebird mornings in the bowls. Each week adds a layer, from technique through to touring. It all builds to the final week, when you swap lifts for the skin track and spend three days touring from a hut deep in the Écrins, skiing lines you earned on the way up.

Best for: skiers ready to commit to a month and build a broader mountain skill set, from freeride technique to touring.

What you’ll work on:

• Freeride technique: powder, line choice and flow through trees, steeps and variable snow
• Avalanche skills: fieldwork, reading conditions and companion rescue
• Touring: skins, kick turns, transitions and a steady pace on the climb, plus the kit that makes it work
• Moving through big terrain: reading the mountain and travelling as a group where there’s no ski patrol

The month at a glance:

• Week 1: technique and fundamentals, guided laps across Serre Chevalier’s zones to learn the terrain, and a day over the border in Cesana, Italy, where you’ll put the early work into practice on new slopes.
• Week 2: avalanche training and companion rescue, steeper terrain as your confidence builds, and a cross-border day at Montgenèvre and Clavière to test your skiing in a different setting.
• Week 3: your introduction to touring, then a day at La Grave, just over the Col du Lautaret. With a single cable car and around 2,000m of unpatrolled bowls, couloirs and glaciated faces, it’s where everything from the first two weeks gets put to work.
• Week 4: three days touring from the Refuge du Chardonnet, a mountain hut in the Écrins reached on skis. Two nights there means fresh lines from the door and evenings around the fire, and for many skiers it’s the point where touring becomes something they want to keep doing.

No touring experience is needed to join. Touring is built up during the camp, in terrain chosen for the conditions, so by the final week you’re putting skills into practice rather than trying them for the first time.

Explore Master the Mountain Series

“In the first two weeks we were lucky with lots of fresh snow, the last two weeks the instructors found off-piste areas that were still very good to ski.”

Martijn de Vries, Master the Mountain Camp

Skins and steeps. For skiers who already tour, or who finish up a Nonstop month wanting more of the uphill, our Tour + Explore Series is the next step. If you’re comfortable on skins and have some backcountry experience, you already have the foundations, and this week is about putting them to use and building on them, capped off with three days touring from a mountain hut in the Écrins.

Best for: advanced to expert skiers who already tour and want a focused week in the backcountry.

What you’ll work on:

• Efficiency on the climb: pacing, kick turns and quick, calm transitions
• Backcountry descents: steep, variable snow and committing lines, from La Grave’s faces to untracked bowls
• Avalanche protocols: planning a day around conditions, moving as a group and keeping rescue skills sharp
• Hut-based touring: managing kit, energy and routine over consecutive days in the mountains

The week at a glance:

• Day 1: arrive and settle in
• Days 2–3: coaching in Serre Chevalier’s sidecountry, using lifts, bootpacks and short tours to sharpen technique, touring skills and avalanche protocols
• Day 4: a guided day on the steep, unpatrolled faces of La Grave
• Days 5–7: touring from the Refuge du Chardonnet, with two nights at the hut and fresh lines each day
• Day 8: departure and farewells

Groups are six riders to a coach, matched by ability and touring experience.

Explore Tour + Explore Series

“First morning out of the Chardonnet, you’re skinning up in the half-light, nobody’s said a word for an hour, and then you drop into a bowl no one else has touched. That’s the bit people come back for.”

Ben Birt, Coach

If you’re confident on piste and itching to explore the trees, bowls and steeps beyond it, start with All-Mountain. It’s a week long, and no touring experience is needed.

If you’ve got a month and want to build the whole skill set, from freeride technique to touring, go for Master the Mountain. You don’t need to be confident off-piste yet, and touring is taught from the ground up.

If you already tour and want a focused week of it, head straight for Tour + Explore.

If you’re not sure where you sit, our team can talk it through with you.

Wherever you start, the aim is the same: to ski more of the mountain, and to feel at home in more of it.

There’s coaching, and there’s guiding, and usually you get one or the other. Our coaches do both in tandem. One run they’re breaking down why your outside ski keeps washing out; the next they’re dropping you into a gully you’d have skied straight past, because they know it’s been holding snow since Tuesday.

That’s what knowing a valley inside out gets you. They read the snowpack, the weather and the group, then pick terrain that pushes you without spitting you out. Coaching sessions layer in technique adjustments, and the next lap puts it all together somewhere steeper.

“Excellent coaching and guiding. Great variation of skiing, really made the most of the conditions.”

Rich Walker, All-Mountain Camp

Come for the skiing and you’ll want to stay for the feel of the place and the new friends you meet. Skiers from all over turn up chasing the same thing, and plenty arrive solo. By day two you’re swapping lunch-table stories and arguing over whose line was cleaner. By the end, you’ve got people to ride with long after the trip.

“A very good atmosphere among the guests, excellent coaching, really friendly, Ben is a legend. No doubt I will return.”

Andrew Wickham, All-Mountain Camp

A month of progression, camaraderie, and just the right amount of mayhem, captured through the eyes of riders on the Master the Mountain Camp. Scroll this Photo Collection for a behind-the-scenes look at life in Serre Chevalier, catching the moments between runs, from the lift line to the skin track.

Ready to pick your line in? Dates and full details for each Series are on the camp pages below:

• All-Mountain Series
• Master the Mountain Series
• Tour + Explore Series

Explore all Serre Chevalier ski camps