Ice Diving & Skiing in Tignes, France

Did you know that you can scuba dive and ski the same day in the middle of winter?

Well I found out you absolutely can, and I was sold. This led to a 15-hour drive for one day in Tignes, where we went ice diving followed by skiing–all in the same day!

Watch the full adventure or continue reading below!

We Went Ice Diving and Skiing in the Same Day | 15 Hour Drive, Ice Diving, & Skiing in the Alps

We drove 15 hours across Germany, Switzerland, and France to try something completely new – ice diving in the Alps – followed by an afternoon of skiing, all in the same day. This trip started with a random idea I couldn’t shake after learning you could ice dive nearby.

The Backstory

With Chase having a last-minute four-day weekend, we had nothing planned, and the plane tickets that were cheap were either to places we’d already been or weren’t particularly interested in visiting.

When we first moved to Germany, I had looked into some diving opportunities near us and discovered that a few places offered ice diving certifications. I became obsessed with the idea of going ice diving at least once, though I wanted to experience an ice dive before committing to the full certification.

That’s what led me to Tignes, France. It was one of the few places I could find where you could try ice diving as a complete beginner on a single guided dive without already having an ice-diving certification.

We were heading into a long winter after years of barely experiencing the season while living somewhere warm. Between that, the long wedding-planning process, and finally getting through the wedding itself, this was our first weekend with nothing planned in more than six months. We were pretty exhausted, and honestly, it was tempting to just stay home.

But instead, I loaded up my underwater camera, our ski equipment, layers, and way too much winter clothing, and we headed out.

Once again, I had done basically zero research besides booking the ice dive and assumed we’d figure everything else out when we got there…

As you can imagine, that barely worked out.

Pre-Trip Preparation

One thing that probably should have been a clue was when we’d been driving for hours, but according to Google Maps, our arrival time somehow hadn’t changed by nearly as much. I remember thinking, wow, we really haven’t been driving that long, and then basically ignoring it like an idiot.

What I didn’t realize was that the road into the mountains toward Tignes was so backed up with traffic that our arrival time kept getting pushed later and later. It made it seem like we hadn’t made much progress despite how long we’d actually been in the car.

Day 1: The Long Drive to Tignes

Anyway, the first night we made it to within about three hours of Tignes before finally stopping at a hotel around 3:00 am–but not before Chase got pulled over about 20 minutes from the hotel. The cops seemed mostly confused about why we were driving around that late at night (and probably because we have a weird-looking truck), and the whole interaction quickly became pretty funny.

The cop walked up and started speaking French, but before I could tell Chase that he was speaking French, Chase automatically responded in German, “Hallo, sprechen Sie Englisch?” — asking if he spoke English. I think Chase had temporarily forgotten we weren’t in Germany anymore.

Naturally, hearing Chase speak German, the cop responded to him in German. Chase then responded in English, leaving this poor cop completely confused about how our conversation had somehow gone from French, to German, to English in the span of about 30 seconds.

Meanwhile, we only actually spoke English.

Honestly, we also hadn’t realized just how many languages we would hear while driving through Switzerland, so the entire interaction had all three of us confused. The cops eventually laughed, let us continue on our way, and I laughed about the interaction for pretty much the rest of the drive.

Day 2: A few travel mishaps

We started Day 2 early, thinking we could get to Tignes with no problem.

Well, after getting stuck in five hours of traffic, we did eventually make it — only to realize there was absolutely nowhere to park near the dive shop. Apparently, you have to park in one of the garages outside the immediate area, which we had no idea about. I called the dive shop, and luckily, they were able to reschedule our dive for the next day. I do wish they had mentioned the parking situation somewhere in the email, though, especially for people who have never been to Tignes before.
We finally found a spot in a parking garage and went to get some food. Then we decided we probably needed a hotel.

Again, terrible planning.

We ended up spending a little more than we wanted to so we could stay directly in town and make absolutely sure we didn’t miss the ice dive the next morning after dealing with all that traffic. There were also literally only three hotels with availability that weekend, so we got incredibly lucky to find one at all.

Unfortunately, our bad luck wasn’t quite finished.

For some reason, I feel like hotels in Europe always advertise breakfast and parking as included, and then somehow neither is actually included. Do not fall for it!

We drove over, dropped off our bags, and asked the hotel where we should park. They basically told us, “Oh yes, just park in the parking garages.”

Well, those were absolutely full.

The hotel told us that another office could help if we couldn’t find a spot, so we went over there. They essentially told us they didn’t care and it wasn’t their problem.

Great.

So we drove back toward the nearby town, only to discover that all of those garages were completely full too.

At this point, it was around 9:00 pm. We were so over this place and just kept driving around looking for literally anywhere to leave the truck.

Then, by some ABSOLUTE miracle, we found a space.

We proceeded to spend the next 18 minutes trying to park the truck in it. The angle was just too tight for the truck. At some point, two German guys wandered over with their beers and started watching us while discussing whether they thought it was even possible, which honestly made the whole situation pretty funny.

But we were determined not to give up that spot.

I quickly ran farther down the line of parked cars and, by a SECOND miracle, found another open space. After another 15 minutes of maneuvering, we finally, very carefully, squeezed the truck in.

Our second day was definitely not what we expected. Two days into our spontaneous ice-diving and skiing trip, and so far we had accomplished neither ice diving nor skiing.

Day 3: Ice Diving & Skiing in Tignes

Finally, the actual activity day!

We woke up and had some really good sandwiches while I got all of my camera equipment put together. We packed up our gear, left everything we didn’t need in the hotel storage room, and this time walked over to the dive shop.

This was actually a really exciting moment. Neither of us had ever been in a dry suit before, so we were thrilled to experience something completely new. After they checked our certifications and I made sure my camera was all set, they found a pair of gloves they hoped would fit my hands while still allowing me to actually grip my camera, and we got dressed.

Once I was zipped into the dry suit, I lumbered my way down to the lake where they had cut several holes into the ice. When they asked who wanted to go first, I figured I might as well get it out of the way so I could get some shots of Chase entering the water afterward.

Getting into the water wasn’t necessarily some massive emotional moment for me. Diving is something I take pretty seriously, and I tend to shut down the excitement while I’m actually doing it and focus on what needs to be done. At that moment, what needed to be done was figuring out how to get myself and my camera through a hole full of floating chunks of ice without scratching my dome port.

What did immediately feel strange was the dry suit. I could feel the water lapping against the outside of the suit, but I couldn’t actually feel the water. There was none of that coldness slowly seeping in as water worked its way into a wetsuit. I knew I was sitting in freezing water, but other than the pressure of it around me, I was still warm and dry inside.

Once I slipped beneath the ice, I was mostly focused on doing what I had been told. The instructor helped adjust the air in my dry suit and then eventually let me go on my own.

And then came the battle with my buoyancy.

Between figuring out a dry suit for the first time, trying to deflate my BCD with absolutely massive gloves that did not fit my hands, and making sure I kept a secure grip on my camera, I had plenty to think about before I ever really stopped to appreciate where I was.

Finally, once I got myself organized, I could actually look around.

The experience was surreal, but not necessarily in some huge adrenaline-filled way. It was just… odd. I grew up in Maine. I’ve seen plenty of frozen lakes, but I had obviously never seen one from underneath. Usually, if you somehow find yourself looking up at the bottom of a frozen lake, something has gone terribly wrong. Yet here I was, safely drifting underneath one.

I watched the different shades of blue and white and the cracks and crevices running through the ice, somehow making it seem alive while also completely unmoving. Rays of light streamed through the holes above us, but my favorite part was simply sitting underneath the ice and watching my bubbles rise and collect against it. I could reach up and touch the frozen surface, feeling some of that coldness seep through my gloves, while the rest of me stayed surprisingly warm.

There was also something hilariously different about this dive compared to almost every other dive we’ve done. Back when we lived in Hawaii, and later while diving in Florida, Chase would always joke before getting in, “Hopefully we see a fish today.” We were usually hoping for sharks, seals, turtles, or something else exciting, but his theory was that if you set the bar at seeing a single fish, you’d almost always come back impressed.

We used to joke that we’d probably never manage to do an entire dive without seeing at least one fish.

Well… we finally did it.

Not a single fish.

And weirdly, that wasn’t really the point of this dive. I normally dive because I love searching for wildlife, coral, algae, or whatever else might be hiding underwater. Here, there was almost nothing to search for. The experience was simply about being somewhere I never really thought you could be — underneath a frozen lake.

I don’t know that ice diving is something I’d personally want to do all the time. Give me an ocean full of weird creatures to look for and I’m probably going to choose that. But experiencing a dry suit for the first time, touching the underside of a frozen lake, and seeing something so familiar from a completely unfamiliar perspective made this one of those dives I’m really glad I got to experience at least once.

Eventually, I surfaced through the hole where a bunch of floating blocks of ice made it extremely difficult to get my camera up and out of the water. I was terrified of scratching the dome port against the ice. Then they pulled me out and basically rolled me over like a rag doll.

They needed Chase to help roll himself over when he came out.

Me? I was apparently light enough to just be hefted around like a doll.

After getting out of the suit, I rushed back down to the lake so I could at least be there when Chase emerged from his dive.
After all of that, we loaded up the car — without daring to actually move it — which meant carrying our bags all the way back to the other town. Again, we probably should have just figured out the shuttle system. But the adrenaline from experiencing something completely new kept us pushing.

Then we rented some skis and headed out for the rest of the afternoon.

The skiing was incredibly scenic, and Chase was skiing for the first time since middle school, so we took it pretty easy. By the end of the afternoon, though, he was somehow already better than me.

The only rough part was how crowded the mountain became. I found that pretty difficult to manage, but we still got to explore a bunch of the mountain and enjoy our first time ever skiing in the Alps.

We made our way down as the mountain was closing, returned our skis, and grabbed some dinner in town. The crêpes we had for dessert were genuinely some of the best I have ever tasted in my entire life — buttery, sweet, and absolutely perfect after the day we’d had.

Then we walked outside.

It was snowing.

Apparently, a massive snowstorm was hitting the Alps.

Yep. We had been on the mountain as it started.

Luckily, we had a truck with 4WD, so we took it slow and, once again, spent most of the night driving to get back home.

The Honest Part

It’s so hard to let yourself get back into uncomfortable situations after allowing yourself to be comfortable for so long.

After going a good six-plus months without doing anything particularly challenging or hard, I realized how incredibly easy it is to fall for comfort. And somehow, within that comfort, I struggled through some of the hardest mental and emotional battles I’ve ever had.

I felt completely unlike myself. I felt lazy and sick all the time. Most days, nothing felt worth the effort, and once you’re in that hole, it becomes extremely hard to dig yourself back out.

This trip was huge in forcing me out of my comfort zone again.

This trip may not have been one of my crazy hiking or diving adventures where I’m dealing with a fractured foot, getting caught in a terrifying thunderstorm, or jumping into the ocean in the middle of the night. But it challenged me in the ways that had actually been holding me back.

Driving through new countries, skiing even though it’s not my favorite, and ice diving for the first time. Even just dealing with the logistics — realizing we were going to miss our ice dive, having to call and reschedule, struggling to find parking, and constantly figuring things out as we went — was uncomfortable.

It was a different kind of struggle, but one that reminded me why travel can be hard in the first place. You’re constantly putting yourself in situations you can’t completely control, and you have to figure them out anyway.

And I think that was exactly the kind of discomfort I needed.

I had let myself become scared and anxious about doing things. I was always telling myself there was too much to do, that we didn’t have time for that hike, that trip, or even time off. I kept making excuses and finding reasons not to go. It went on for so long that being uncomfortable again became genuinely difficult. I dreaded it. And the more time I spent choosing comfort, the worse I felt. I became more anxious, more stressed, and more depressed.

This trip was a massive smack in the face, forcing me to see what I had allowed to happen.

I need discomfort. I need self-made physical struggle. When I don’t create challenges for myself to overcome, especially physical ones, my mind seems to create its own suffering elsewhere — anxiety about life, a never-ending to-do list, problems in my marriage that don’t even exist.

If I don’t choose a certain level of suffering to overcome, then suffering will eventually come from somewhere else, and I will be wholly unprepared to handle it.

Walking a path with God, with Jesus, often means walking through suffering. So many of His followers found blessings and even joy within their suffering, just as Jesus suffered for us.

It’s hard for me to put into words exactly what I mean by all of this. Some people may say I am incredibly lucky to have a life where I sometimes have to create suffering for myself, and I am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t experience suffering through trials, trauma, and the parts of life I don’t get to choose.

What I mean is that the suffering I do choose prepares me for the suffering I don’t.

Choosing to be cold, exhausted, scared, uncomfortable, or physically pushed reminds me that I can keep moving when something is hard. More importantly, it teaches me to rely on and grow closer to the Lord through that struggle.

So when suffering comes that I didn’t ask for and cannot control, I hope I am better prepared to walk through it with Him and eventually come out the other side.

If You Made It This Far

I’d love to hear your story of what it takes to push you back out of your comfort zone, especially when it’s been a while since you have — Share your story in the comments below!

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