Okay so a friend suggested we go snowboarding in La Rosiere however when I looked at the snowboarding almanac book it states there are 20 drag lifts there. has anyone been and got any experience of the resort? I asked 2 people who have both been who state they can only think of 1 or 2 drag lifts, but it seems odd that the book would be so wildly wrong. Otherwise it looks quite a nice place to go??

Alternatively give us some suggestions as to where to go from 20-27th February and where is relatively cheap .. plus is good for snowboarders who are intermediate (me) or advance (Mr MC). Would like a fully catered chalet.

Cheers in advance!

I'd avoid La Rosiere on a board. There's a lot of traversing to return from La Thuile, although the La Rosiere side does have some nice wide pistes.

Have been to Ros twice boarding and it's very relaxed. There are only 2 drags that are a "drag" and these are very long, that take you over the border to la Thuile. excellent resort but it does suffer from very strong winds which will shut the lifts.

I forgot about the LONG tows to get to La Thuile. They're easy 'alpine tows' though, not a patch on some Scottish horrors…

Try Montgenevre. Small, quite cheap and with a good mix of runs (its part of the Milky Way so linked to Sestriere and a few other resorts). Lift pass used to give one free days riding in Serre Chevalier, Les 2 Alpes and Alp D'Huez. Access is mostly chairs and Gondolas with some drags for more remote areas.

Flaine has a good range of Pistes too, enormous area with the full pass. Not too expensive but the resort is quite ugly. More hotels than Chalets however. Access is mostly chairs and gondolas with the odd drag here and there

Serre Chevalier is also very good. Huge piste area and a very nice series of villages. Access is based around chairs, gondolas and cable cars for the main pistes with some drags. Will definately have chalets and is close by to Les Deux Alpes, Montgenevre and Alp D'Huez for away days.

I am going boarding in Tignes end of Jan and heard nothing but good things about the place plus get a full area lift pass and you have val area as well. Accomodation for us was dirt cheap but think we are staying in a cattle shed.

Snow is excellent and if not then use the glacier…

Just thought I would add my two pence worth.

Have you been to Tignes before or not? oooo I don't mind suggestions, we have been to Winter Park, Colorado the last 2 years and it's awesome we have been spoilt. Would love to go back but work commitments and annual leave at the moment is making it look unlikely. Have been to Serre Chevalier (sh** valier as we called it!), Les Deux Alps .. do not tried many. Although Mr MC done La Plagne a few times.

+1 for Tignes. Was there last year, great ski area.

TBH Never had a problem with drag lifts on a board or skis. Yes they arn't the best way to get up a hill (and worse when skiers have put two narrow tracks in them), but I wouldn't base my resort on the number of drag lifts.

Montgenevre is good as mentioned above, a lot cheaper than Tignes, but to link up the rest of the milky way is a hastle. Need to go quick to get across to sauze and do some runs over there and get back.

Also try Saalbach in Austria. The Ski Circus there is good, although I must admit I find Austria hotels far better than france or Italian ones.

EDIT -also like the La Plange/Les Arc area also!

We went to La Rosiere last year and if you're not comfortable with drags I'd give it a miss. The Italian side (La Thuile) has much more interesting terrain and when we were there it had much better snow as well but the only way to get there is a very long drag. It's not particularly steep (in fact it actually goes slightly downhill in places!) but it takes about 20 mins and even as a relatively fit cyclist my legs were on fire by the end. My girlfriend simply couldn't manage it and so we were limited to the La Ros side. That said; if you can handle that one drag once a day it's a cracking resort (you can avoid all the other drags completely) and it's slightly better value than some of the lager French resorts.

Far .. that's enough to tell me NO THANKS to La Ros! I can't stand drags even small short ones and any drag (main) is enough for me to say "no thanks" there are too many other places that must be great without drags to waste my time getting annoyed!

+1 for Tignes both skied and boarded there for a fair few years, if you're on a budget and not fussed about nightlife try Le Breviere below the dam but it's a chore in the morning getting up to Tignes itself.

http://www.tignesnet.com/ for more info

Certainly not fussed about nightlife. Normally get so knackered from boarding that I just want my 3 course dinner and some sleep!!!!

St Martin De Belleville in the 3 Valleys is very nice indeed. Quiet nightlife, very attractive small village. If you can get a lift pass for that Valley I can highly recommend it as runs direct out of St Martin are very limited indeed but with a full pass you get a lot more to play with.

In fact all 3 resorts in that Valley are good when it comes to varied piste (I found anyway).

*due to having a brain fart I cant remember the name of the other two resorts further up*

Apologies for the hijack, but anybody been to Les Arcs to board but stayed in Bourg? If so what did you think? Thinking of doing this the start of February with some mates.

Thanks

+1 for Far

Went out with some snowboarders and it was a total waste of time as they could not handle the long drags at the Italian side.

Serre Chevalier's good

great vibe in the town, day trips to sestriere, montgenevre , les 2 alpes and la grave

boarding in the birch trees etc

and local beers ( luc alphond )

best hol of them all

Was in Tignes Val Claret last week and couldn't recommend it highly enough. I was concerned about the elevation and the consequent lack of trees but when it was raining below 2000m I was quite chuffed about it. The terrain and the extent of it is pretty awesome, especially if you factor in Val D'Isere.

Go to Sainte Foy and stay at The White Room

No drags at all, great chalet. Dead quiet resort with loads of snowboard play potential on and off piste

Been to Tignes a few times now and love it.

(Mr MC posting- she's at work Im at home)

Funny how experiences can alter a view of a resort. We went to serre sh1tvallier when it hadnt snowed for 5 weeks which is probably a bit extreme. All I can remember of the resort is no snow, lots of drag lifts (possibly serving the few open runs with any snow) and a quirky mountain layout with the easy stuff at the top (MC was a total beginner then) leaving you needing to do steeper stuff to get into the resort. Worst holiday and worst skiing ever (I lived 45mins from a little local resort in Pennsylvania which was better).

Ive been boarding years and agree with MC, drag lifts are enough reason to disregard a resort, theres more resorts out there than I'll ever get to ride so why go somewhere where mountain access is frustrating? We've been really spoiled with Winter Park with phenomenal snow, terrific runs (powder+trees=perfect), great hotels, great service, good value, and no lift line aggression (or drags). My 2 yr old board looks imacculate and I know after one day in European lift lines there'll be no topcoat left… Europe will struggle to compete on every level, but the best time I've had in Europe (prior to meeting MC 😆 was Val D'Isere/Tignes. To be fair by "Europe" I mean France- Ive never ridden anywhere else on the continent so interested to hear about Austria etc.

Djnova – Not a boarder ( skier here) but have stayed in Bourg. You'll have no problems getting up the mountain every day on the regular Funicular.
I also love Les Arcs.

Pila in a the Aosta valley. Brilliant for Int and a bit of stiff for advanced. Wide open piste so when it dumps there is lots of easy to reach pow. Still in the treeline so good in a white out (tignes is almost un-ridable in a whiteout)

IS Pila in Italy then? sorry for my ignorance!!

I've been to La Thuile a few times and really enjoyed it. There are no drag lifts on the Italian side of 'espace san bernardo'. Lift queues are almost no existant and the resort is refreshingly devoid of bangin' euro-choons' and other apres nonsense. You can heli-board/ski from there if you fancy it. The international connection to La Rosiere often closes if there are high winds and as others have said there are loads of drag lifts on that side.

Worth Considering Courmayeur & Pila as well. If you have access to a car you can easily do a tour of the resorts in the valle d'aosta. Local food, wine and coffee are great!

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend La Rosiere for snowboarders (I live right next door in Sainte Foy and go over there regularly). 20 drags in total is probably about right, but most of them can be avoided. There's only one drag tow which is "compulsary" but the whole resort is just a bit flat (Italian side is better). I have no problems making it along all the runs on my board, but a lot of guests struggle to get over the flat bits. When the inevitable Petit Saint Bernard wind gets up (there's a reason they have a snowkite school there!) it makes getting over all the flats that much worse.

I'd recommend Sainte Foy and our chalet but we're full that week! Sainte Foy is great for snowboarding – nice, consistent gradient all the way down and superb easy-access off-piste. Never any lift queues or crowded pistes.

To be honest, for 20-27th Feb, you may be well advised to avoid France. That's right in the middle of the French half-term and everywhere will be heaving (except here, it never gets too busy here!).

Maybe check out St Anton in Austria or Laax/Flims in Switzerland. Both great snowboard resorts.

Oh aye, thanks for the recommendation Dave!

Stevmcd! WOW I'm glad you told me that! We booked that week to avoid UK half term! right on the case NOW to re-arrange my leave there is no way I'm going to France then it's horrific normally with their queue lines!!

Did snowboarding in La Ros last year. A fair amount of traversing but not too bad. There is only a couple of unavoidable drag lifts, including a super long one (like 2-3k) to get to italy. It goes quickly and if you fall off you have a very long walk through unpested snow to get back. If you hate drags, then avoid. My GF didn't like it for that reason.

Stevmcd! WOW I'm glad you told me that! We booked that week to avoid UK half term! right on the case NOW to re-arrange my leave there is no way I'm going to France then it's horrific normally with their queue lines!!

Yup, French half-term is 6th Feb – 6th March. The middle two weeks (13th – 27th Feb) are the worst as there will be 2 "regions" on holiday during both of those weeks.

We've got space in March if you're interested!

Sorry Ewan has confirmed that La Ros is MOST DEFINATELY a NO NO NO NO NO! Drag lifts are awful end of!
Halft term is a whole month how does that work! Argh now it's causing me dilemmas of when to go! Maybe it's Winter Park, COlorado again!

Are you limited to a week? If not then don't discount British Columbia (although Whistler in Feb might be a tad busy …). I think 7 days is too short for a 9 or so hour flight, but 10 to 14 days or more is definitely worth it, especially if you've enjoyed Winter Park. Canadian dollar exchange rate isn't great at the moment but then neither is the Euro.

Catered Chalets aren't as common as Europe, but if there are a few of your sharing a Condo it can work out quite reasonable.

Canadian 'spring break' or 'reading week' can get quite busy but still nowhere near most busy French resorts during February

Winter olympics in Whistler in Febuary, so a no go really. All is virtually booked up and has been for a couple of years now.

No, not for boarding. Not for skiing either IMO.

Half term might be a month because French schools stagger their vacation days so that the ski resorts are not as completely impossibly crowded as they otherwise might be …

I like La Rosiere, actually, but not for snowboarding.

Sorry Ewan has confirmed that La Ros is MOST DEFINATELY a NO NO NO NO NO!

We're not in La Ros! I actually like it over there for a cruisy day on my skis, but Sainte Foy is miles better. Small, but perfectly formed!

Taken just the other day:

Blimy that looks like the field behind my house! 8)

Stevemcd.- Any space 23rd Jan , twin room ??
About to book something this weekend, and my mate raves about ste foy.
La Ros not the best for boarders, PDS prob a better bet.

Don't discount all of Canada. Me, the mrs, and two mates got Banf/Lake Louise for 420 quid each. Bargain.

For a great boarding holiday + accom + the best of food go to Courchevel 1550. Try this, pleisure.co.uk. You cannot go wrong, tell Pete or Dave that David Watts recomended them/you.

Gravy I will have a look and see waht they can offer! Just need to sort annual leave out .. think I may move it into first week or so of March.
Lots of good suggestions though keep them coming I'm still looking.

singletrackmind: Full that week, spaces for the weeks on either side.