Backdrop's first Splitboard Workshop, in the Haute Maurienne Valley, Feb 2024

Backdrop held its first ever “Introduction to Splitboarding”, a splitboard skills workshop, over four days last February in the Haute Maurienne Valley in France.

It went so well we’re doing it again! This time with a day extra, 8th-15th March 2025!

We had way more interest than we anticipated for our first one, but our pals at Upguides, who were doing all the hard work of on snow guiding and instructing, were well up to catering for everyone without any trouble.

And it was a blast, with new skills learned, friends made, er, skins put on backwards, giant pain-au-raisins necked by the dozen, a night in a hut, and we even managed to fit in some great riding too.

The Haute Maurienne Valley is long, some 40km in length, and is much wilder and quieter than it’s northern neighbour the Tarentaise valley with it’s mega-resorts of Val D’Isere-Tignes, Les 3 Vallées, La Plagne, and more. The resorts in the “HMV” are far more modest, the biggest, Val Cenis, having about a third of the piste-length of Val D’Isere-Tignes. While others like La Norma, Aussois, Val Frejus and Bonneville-sur-Arc only have just a few lifts each, but between them cover a range of aspects, and lifts up to 3000m, so whatever the weather there’s always somewhere great to ride.

You also get vastly fewer crowds in the Haute Maurienne and it’s way cheaper for your lift passes and to eat and drink, and you can have a much more peaceful backcountry experience, very little competing for lines here!

The cherry on the cake, which makes the Haute Maurienne the perfect location for the workshop, is that the valley is home to our workshop partners Upguides. Upguides are a specialist guiding company that run trips around the Haute Maurienne, Norway and in Greenland. Their lead guide, Fred - and many of his team - just love to ply their trade on splitboards which is why we work with them. Fred also runs the excellent Arctic Splitboard Festival, which we went to this year.

We had a pretty international crew, on the 2024 workshop, with riders joining us from Spain, “Italy-slash-Finland”, New York, the UK of course, and even from just down the road in the Haute Maurienne Valley itself! Everyone could ride, but some had never been splitboarding, while others had splitboarded a bit but wanting to hone their skills, as well as some who had more experience of splitboarding but were looking for a bunch of like-minded riders to hang with.

In the first two days, we all went touring together - in the Termignon area and from Lanslebourg. We practiced transceiver use and the other key aspects of Avalanche rescue technique. We dug snow pits and looked at snow structure. We learned about how to pack our backpacks, and how to tackle skinning on the wide variety of snow types that we came across.

In the evenings we’d talk about route-planning for the following days, often over a pint, and then go out for dinner together.

On days three and four, we split into two groups - a slightly more confident / gung-ho group did a two-day tour up to the Refuge du Plan du Lac, with a full afternoons skin to get there, and after a warm night with a pasta dinner they toured higher still for a really long run back to the cars, without seeing another skier or snowboarder over the whole two days mini expedition.

Meanwhile, those wanting a bit more practice on some specific skills, to work on skills learned in the first two days - and who maybe fancied a bit more riding than the long tour up to the refuge - visited a couple of the other local resorts.

The feedback from those who joined us in February was super-positive, which made us decide to run it again in 2025, this time over a full week, now with five days guided on the snow (rather than four, and with a day off in the middle of the week), so we can fit in more skills training and practice time, as well as just more time out there on the hill.

Some example feedback from Feb 2024 -

‘Just like to thank you guys again for organising a great few days splitting. The course was exactly what I was expecting.. 2 feet of powder would’ve been nice [but] I thought the course was structured just right; nice and easy on the first day ramping up to a great tour over the last two days. Fred was great at passing on his knowledge. Just the right amount of information without blowing my mind. Liked the inclusive way decisions were made. The over night in the hut was fab.’

‘Highly recommend this trip. Loved it last year the backdrop crew are fantastic and Fred is a legend.’

‘The course is a great place to meet people as well.’

So do check it out - the Backdrop Splitboard skills workshop in the Haute Maurienne Valley is one of the best value introduction to splitboarding courses you’ll find out there, and probably the most fun!

And if you can’t make it for 8-15th March 2025, check out the Haute Maurienne Valley and it’s resorts anyway, and if you visit the area and need some guiding, you can’t go wrong with Upguides.

And finally, thanks to everyone who attended the 2024 workshop - you all helped to make it the roaring success it was. Many of you have stayed in touch, so there’s a good chance we’ll all get to ride together again at some point!

RIDE, CONNECT, STAY SAFE