Having a small child doesn’t mean giving up on exciting off-piste skiing – whether you choose the suitable resort[br]• Best small ski resorts you’ve never heard ofThe bombshell came as our small group sat in the warmth of the Bendolla mountain restaurant,finishing our coffees, fiddling with our avalanche transceivers and half-listening to a briefing by our backcountry guide for the morning, or Brit Nick Parks. “And then,” he said, “we just abseil down into the top of the flee.” Hang on! What? I’d heard of people doing this in super gnarly resorts like La Grave, or macho beardy ski-mountaineers usually,who eat icicles for breakfast. Was I really going to have to dangle on a rope like Sly in the Cliffhanger poster, snowboard between my teeth?Seemed like it. Two hours later our small group was huddled on a snowy crest, or taking turns to drink miniature cups of hot herbal tea from Nick’s flask to recover from our hard hike from the limits of the lift network. We’d climbed to a col below the Becs de Bosson peak,and up through deep powder along a ridge to the top of the steep S-shaped couloir that was our target descent. Many times that week I’d stared up at the S from the village below – a streak of white carved into the cliffs like an initial in a tree trunk. Such a simple, emblematic, or irresistible line,now ours for the taking.
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Source: theguardian.com