Ski Sans Frontières

Tucked away on the border with Italy, the village of Montgenèvre in Hautes-Alpes provides winter fun for all levels of skier, as Kate Pettifer explains.

- Kate Pettifer

Standing halfway down an intermediate red run on a sunny winter’s day, not a cloud in sight, I can see a broad, snowy piste that dips and then rises straight towards an Alpine chalet, Café Monsoleil. It is my goal. I have crossed from France into Italy on skis to sample its liquid treasure – Italian hot chocolate; gloopy, syrupy, dark and sweet.

Crossing from France to Italy is not as epic as it sounds; not when you are staying virtually on the border, in the Hautes-Alpes village of Montgenèvre. Its ski-pass area, Monts de la Lune, encompasses the slopes of Claviere in Italy and sits at the gateway to the vast Via Lattea ski area (or Milky Way, to continue the chocolate theme). You can make a morning of it, taking a couple of chair lifts and ski runs to reach the top of the Rocher de l’Aigle, a peak that straddles the two countries. All you’ll need is to be competent enough to manage a red run.

Montgenèvre was established in 1907 as a ski resort, having previously been the location of a winter training camp for the French army. Today, soldiers can still be seen on the pistes, trudging uphill, clad in white, heavy kit on their backs and skins on their skis – en route to the high-altitude base in the Gondrans sector.

There are signs of more serious military activity, too: look to the ridge line and you can still spy a series of ‘ouvrages’, fortifications based around the Fort des Gondrans. These were built at the turn of the 20th century, and extended in the 1930's as part of the Maginot Line, France’s eastern network of defences. During World War II, it came under fire from the Italians, but remained intact.