A digital splitboarding nomad - in Tignes

Aiguille Percée - early morning during the commute to work

It had been 28 years since I’d last looked down the north face of Le Dôme Pramecou: 300m-vert of steep and classically-epic Tignes back-country. Back then, trusting to dumb-luck, my buddies and I would throw ourselves down it without much thought. This time round, I eyeballed it much more intently, suspiciously even, burdened with decades of accumulated snow-safety knowledge. The end result of my deliberations was a ‘go’ though and a minute or so of adrenalin-high charging later, on super well-preserved pow, I slid to a stop on a plateau that was not far from the bars in Tignes but where not another soul was to be seen.

The north face of the Pramecou - the descent I revisited is on the face in half-sun, lookers-left

Tignes is high up in the Tarentaise valley, within the Savoie region of France’s Alpes. One of the biggies, with pistes galore, glacier action and access to a life-time’s worth of sphincter-winkingly gnarly lines. And so well-connected to the resort of Val D'Isere that it might as well almost be one resort, with a combined 300km of runs between 1,550m and 3,450m - one of the largest and highest ski areas in Europe.

I was here again because I’d wangled use of a friend’s apartment for a couple of weeks – sure, I had to work my normal job those two weeks (luckily, one that can be done from anywhere) but why work from home, in London during the ski season, when I could do that here instead!? Exactly. Hence me embarking on an (admittedly short) bit of digital nomading.

The riding side of things we’ll definitely get to, but what makes a ski resort, or any place for that matter, a good spot for digital nomads?

Internet access is surely top of the list. And Tignes is France, right? So decent connectivity can be had if you pick the right accomodation. But if you are going stir-crazy in your 17m2 pad then Tignes also offers the Maison du Tignes., in Tigne’s central village, Le Lac, and is a combined tourist office, luggage storage, ski pass sales desk… and awesome workspace on it’s top level: Le Panorama. A warning though, your productivity might take a hit because of the spectacular views. The space is free to use, has a variety of seating and desks, has power sockets galore, and beanbags! What more could you need?

Welcome to your new office…The Maison du TIgnes

There are of course plenty of bars and cafes that’ll be happy to let you bash away at your keys in exchange for their wares. I particularly liked L'Escale Blanche, next to the Maison du Tignes - powerful hot chocolate, very comfy seating, power, a terrace, and they were happy to have people working. And La Cantine in Le Lavachet, the more ‘residential’ bit of Le Lac, is great too. And if you fancy working on your tan and payslip at the same time then you try working on the terrace of one of the many mountain restaurants.

On the accommodation side, there are plenty of options. Whereas Val D’Isere seems to have more chalet hotels, Tignes has gone for in big time for apartment buildings. It’s three highest villages, all at around 2100m, are on a plain leading toward the base of Tignes highest peak, the Grande Motte. Le Lavachet and Le Lac are the first two that you encounter, and are pretty much one village, with Val Claret a couple of km further on, across the lake. Lavachet is a good option to stay in, it’s got at least one of every kind of shop you are likely to need, is an easy walk to Le Lac, and has some big ‘ol apartment buildings, and is probably the more affordable of the three. Find a place any way you can - twist the arm of a friend (as I did), use the local real estate firms (listed on the Tignes app), check out websites like tignes.co.uk, or even use sites like Airbnb.

Ok, so you have a place to stay and you have internet. What about stuff to do when not working or riding? Have no fear, you are super well catered for here. Check out the Tignes app, which has quite a good directory in it: cinema, swimming pool, gigs, the leisure centre is great and has a really good climbing wall, plus there’s any crazy sport variation that you can think of - tobogganing, ice-diving (!), speed-riding, ice-climbing etc. Not to mention all the bars, restaurants and patisseries. And don’t forget the games consoles in Le Panorama.

So we’ve established. I think, that you can live in Tignes for any length of time you are considering – so how’s the actual riding?

My stand-up desk in my temporary home office

The word “epic” just about starts to do the Tignes-Val d'Isère area some justice.

I suspect the only way it could disappoint might be that the area can get pretty busy at peak holiday times – translating into a lot of competition for lines. But, other than that, whether your poison is piste, off-piste, free-ride, touring or ski mountaineering, it’s almost impossible to oversell the linked areas of Tignes and Val D’Isere. I was there for touring, sorry, work! But, ahem, touring when not working – which I forced upon myself by being a cheapskate and only getting a pass for 3 days over the middle weekend I was there. I wanted to see how much I could do in Tignes just by skinning.

It turned out to be a lot as most days I was up about 6am and out the door by 7-ish, just after sunrise in mid-April. I’d skin up one of the pistes within easy reach of Lavachet, of which there are several, either ride down on fresh new pow, or carve newly-minted corduroy, eventually knuckling down to work around 10am. I didn’t skin after work, even though the sun was up till about 8pm, because the days were generally pretty warm meaning the pistes were well-slushy and carved-up by then.

Tignes has a couple of marked skin tracks (Piste de ski de randonée) on the piste map – these start from Le Lac and go up the north side of the valley, but that’s just a fraction of the area. One great thing about Tignes, for skinning, is that I got zero hassle from any resort staff when skinning up any piste in Tignes. Watch out for the piste bashers, sure, but I found their drivers were mainly outright friendly or at very worst just ignored me and got on with the job. Likewise the pisteurs, checking the slopes before the punters descend after lift-opening - I had some nice chats with a couple of them and the only warnings they gave were to maybe keep a bit further to the side to stay out of the way of skiers who sensibly used the lifts rather than hiking up. I checked with some long-term residents and they said that, yep, that’s how touring in Tignes works, it’s the culture here – quite in contrast to some places I can think of these days… I’m looking at you, Chamonix.

There were a few other punters skinning up in the mornings, so if you were around for a bit longer than I was, I’m sure you could strike up some conversations and get some ‘networking’ in.

The downside of actually having to go to work was that it was so hard to come off the mountain just as others were heading up for the day! I just had to keep reminding myself that the 2 hours I just had was a total bonus compared to working in London.

The terrain, as mentioned, is pretty epic. Tignes hosted the Freeride World Tour for a couple of years and still does some of the affiliated events. There are refuges, like the lovely Refuge de la Leisse you can ski tour to, stay in, and use as a base for exploring the Parc Nationale de la Vanoise, in which Tignes is on the northern edge of. You can even tour right across it to the Haute Maurienne Valley, to places like Bonneville-sur-arc or Val Cenis. Other major resorts like La Plagne, Les Arcs are all within reach of a day tour as well. The excellent and comprehensive “Tignes Hors Piste: le Guide Complete”, by Simon Perry, who we’ve interviewed in our podcast series, describes 250-odd off-piste routes – so you might need to give up the ‘nomad’ bit of digital nomading to make a dent in all those. If you want to spare your legs a bit, It’s €66 for a Tignes-only one day pass but season pass breaks-even at 3 weeks if you are here long enough to warrant that.

My most memorable day was a dark-start skin up the 1556m from Val Claret to the summit of the Grand Motte. Tricky at times as I’d forgotten my ski crampons and, even on warmer days, the last 500m before the top station of the summit cable car can be pretty icy, being glacier. From there, softer snow to the actual summit for incredible 360 degree views around the Tarentaise valley and Parc National de la Vanoise. Coming down, I dropped into the majestic Couloir 3500 (so called because it’s entrance is, you guessed it, at 3500m…) and afterwards skinned across to the Refuge de la Leisse for lunch. What a spot, fantastically welcoming, delicious food, and having views across to some exciting-looking off-the-beaten path north faces that I’m marking down for a future trip, basing myself at the refuge a couple of nights.

Refuge de la Leisse - a fantastic base for exploring the terrain south of the Grande Motte

Because I was on my todd for this trip, I arranged a free-ride morning with Daniel Boror, who guides for Evolution2, in Tignes. Normally he skis, but his true love is snowboarding, and he’s been a qualifier in the Freeride World Tour before, so he’s no slouch. Seeing me on my board, he grabbed his and we hit the Face Nord de la Petite Balme (a bit hard-packed but a fantastic setting) and the P2 couloir on the Grande Balme side (fantastic north-facing snow on the approach, a bit sun-baked in the actual couloir). If you are in Tignes, I really recommend heading out with him.

So there we are after almost 30 years I fell in love with Tignes and it’s terrain all over again. In two weeks I skinned and rode pretty much every day, did actually get a lot of work done, hit some new lines, and got super excited about future routes should I get the chance to do this again (I foresee some gentle but persistent encouragement to my wife that she go visit her family again for a couple of weeks next April).

The only real problem, is you may just want to stay for good and give up your nomad lifestyle.

How to…

Get there – Flying - Chambery is about 2hrs transfer away or, Geneva and Lyon about 3hrs and Grenoble about 3.5hrs. Train - Eurostar and high-speed TGV to Bourg St Maurice, then get the Altibus shuttle the 45 mins up the hill (slightly annoyingly either direction seems to always involve going the other way to Val D’Isere first).

Local Transport - The buses between Le Lac and the ‘highest’ village (like, 20m higher) of Val Claret are free and frequent, starting in the dark for the workers, so no problem if I wanted early morning access to different pistes up there.

Pass prices – I was only there for 2 weeks, but if you are there for longer I’m sure you’ll want to rely on more than just your own legs all the time. A Tignes+Val d'Isere pass (because you will want that) for 2024/25 for 15 days is €923. A season pass = €1090. You do the math, as they say - three weeks and you are riding for free. Passes are free for kids up to 8 yro, and there are cheaper rates for 8-18 yros.

Maison du Tignes - M-F 10-12 & 2-7, and Sat 2-7. Perfectly set up to ski the morning & work the afternoon, with a siesta over lunch. Dress for summer, there’s good heating in there! Free WiFi. Various types of seating, power.

Ski touring shops - The best place in town is Mountain Attitude, in Le Lac, a small shop but super friendly and helpful, with all sorts of ski touring and splitboard kit that belies the shops size.

Avalanche courses - Get in touch with Avalanche Geeks to see what courses they have on in Tignes. I did their level 2 course in Tignes a few years back and it was excellent, really well run, and a good balance of on-the-hill and theory.