Marion, in a paragraph.
Marion grew up between Aosta and Annecy, the daughter of an Italian mother and a French father, both mountaineers in their own right. She first put on skis at three and first roped up with her father at thirteen. The choice between ski instruction and high-mountain guiding has, in her case, been a long and careful negotiation. She is currently doing both.
She holds the Diplôme d'État from the École Nationale de Ski et d'Alpinisme, completed in the years following a long apprenticeship inside the FFCAM mountaineering school. She holds, in addition, the Anena avalanche risk certification — France's most thorough standalone qualification on the subject, taught by working forecasters from the Météo-France mountain bureau in Grenoble. She is, finally, an aspirant high-mountain guide with the IFMGA, the international federation, and expects to complete the full diploma over the next two seasons.
What this means, in practice, is that the off-piste days Marion runs with our families are built on three layers of qualification: ski instructor, avalanche analyst, and mountaineering aspirant. The kit she carries — and the kit she puts on every guest before the first descent of the week — is the kit a guide carries. The morning she opens any off-piste day with a beacon drill and a snowpack assessment is the morning a guide opens it with. The reason the team trusts her with the discipline is that she treats it that way.
Marion teaches in French, English and Italian. She works most often with returning families from Milan, Turin, Geneva and London. Outside the ski-school calendar, she is on skins — ski-touring above La Léchère, ski-mountaineering on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massif, and, in spring, on the long high routes of the Vanoise. She is, by some distance, the fittest member of the tribe.
When she takes you off-piste — and when she doesn't.
Marion's off-piste decision is made twice each morning. The first time is at six, with a cup of coffee and three open windows on her laptop — the Météo-France BERA bulletin, the Italian regional avalanche service, and the Lyon-bureau weather model. By the time she meets the family in the lift queue, she already has a route in mind, a backup route in reserve, and a clear line below which she will not take the group that day.
The second decision is made on the snow, at the top of the first off-piste descent of the week. She digs a small profile, runs a quick stability test, and looks for the wind transport from the previous 24 hours. If the snow is loaded, the route is changed. If the stability test fails, the day is changed. The decision is hers. It is not negotiable. The families who book Marion know this is the contract — and it is, by a long margin, the reason they keep coming back.
What this looks like over a season: of every ten days planned with off-piste in mind, two are downgraded to on-piste programmes, one is moved to a different sector, and seven unfold roughly as planned. Marion will tell the family why, in plain language, before they leave the chalet. There is no theatre about it. The day moves on.
For families who want serious freeride — three or more consecutive days of off-piste programming — Marion is the only instructor on the team we recommend without hesitation. For occasional off-piste woven into a broader on-piste week, any of the team can do the work. The distinction matters more in February, when the snowpack is more complicated, than in late March, when the spring corn forgives almost everything.
Her favourite line in the 3 Valleys.
Marion's preferred line, when conditions allow, is the long traverse from the top of La Masse down to the Lac du Lou. It is six kilometres of off-piste with a single sustained descent, a 700-metre vertical, and one small col to climb in the middle. She takes a family there once or twice each winter, almost always on a Wednesday, almost always with lunch booked at Le Chalet du Lac on the way out. It is the descent she would take any visiting friend on, given the choice.
Her second-favourite line, less talked about, is the long Combe de Rosaël on the northern side of Cime Caron — held for the families who have already skied La Masse with her and want something steeper for the second half of the week.
In the words of her guests.
On the morning we expected, she said no. We were disappointed for forty seconds. We then had the best on-piste day of the week instead. Two days later, she said yes — and we had the best off-piste day of our lives. A returning guest, Geneva — fourth winter with Marion
She is the calmest person on a slope I have ever skied behind. Nothing is hurried. Nothing is showy. And yet, by Friday, our daughter was skiing untracked snow in a couloir she would never have entered without her. An Italian guest, Milan — second week with Snowtailors
Where you'll ski with her.
Marion divides her winter between two villages. Val Thorens — the Cime Caron face, the long descents to the Lac du Lou — accounts for roughly half of her calendar. Les Menuires, and specifically the off-piste of La Masse on the opposite side of the Belleville valley, accounts for the rest. She skis Méribel, Courchevel and Saint-Martin on rotation when the family chooses to base there.
- Val Thorens — the Cime Caron face, the Boismint south side, and the long itinerary descents from Pointe du Bouchet down to Lac du Lou. Her preferred terrain when the snow is dry.
- Les Menuires — the off-piste of La Masse, which she considers the best lift-served powder in the 3 Valleys. The longer descents back to the village from the top of the gondola.
- Saint-Martin, Méribel, Courchevel — taught on rotation, more often when families request a multi-village week. She is also the team's first call for a guided day in the Vanoise National Park, by ski-touring access.
Working with Marion.
To request Marion specifically, mention her name in your enquiry. Her calendar fills first for the deep-winter weeks — late January through mid-March — when off-piste conditions in the 3 Valleys are at their most reliable. For Christmas and New Year, when low-altitude snow is less certain, she takes fewer dedicated off-piste families and more all-mountain programmes.
Language pairing: French, English or Italian, equally fluent. She is the instructor we pair with Italian-speaking families by default, and one of two on the team who can run a full week of instruction in Italian.
Off-piste days include avalanche transceiver, shovel and probe for every guest, an airbag pack for the lead skier in the group, and a 15-minute beacon drill before the first descent. For dedicated freeride weeks of three or more consecutive off-piste days, we extend the kit to include airbags for every guest at no additional cost. She does not work with guests who refuse to wear a transceiver. The decision is hers, and it is held without discussion.