In reply to Roberttaylor:
Piste skiing - not terribly good near La Grave, unless you go quite a way to Serre Chevalier, or back toward Grenoble to Alpe D'Huez or Les Deux Alpes. None of these are very good at the moment to put it mildly, most likely they are conserving what little snow they have for Christmas. If open, the "off piste with lifts" from La Grave itself are very good - when they are good.
Ski-touring - some may be possible, you may have to walk MUCH further than usual at this time of year carrying skis.
Winter alpinism - er, at this time of year? You need to be pretty hard and pretty good for that!
An intermediate, not quite high mountains but certainly not roadside :
http://www.ice-fall.com/Page_Secteur.aspx?IdSecteur=22
(over the Col du Lautaret, down quite a long way to the highest village of the Serre Chevalier ski-station, then a 2-3 hour walk-in up a side valley from the Terraine Nordique).
In fact, several hours walkin, most or all of which would have to be done by headtorch.
Of course, this can change before you get there, depends on any days of heavy snow or sustained cold. But heavy snow is not going to have much of a base, either for off-piste or touring (it will be bashed into concrete on the ski stations, not very nice but at least skiable).
A few routes are allegedly coming in in the Vallon du Diable, not that that is normally thought of as La Grave, also it is clearly still very, very bare generally, while descriptions of those few routes talk of belays being unreachable as the ice is so much lower than usual.
Contact me later the time if you want more detail, but it still does not look good for ANY mountain activity at the moment, nor is it showing great signs of improving at present. 13 degrees in Grenoble today, should normally be at least -2, -5 at night.
Post edited at 19:39
