⛷️ ❄️ Skiing and Snowboarding 23-24 🏔️ 🏂

Slushy euro carving fun today…..

really windy though high up and lots of lifestyle shut!

Last day of the season yesterday for us, we had to take the dog to the vet for his pre-travel worming so went to La Tania after that, rather than driving back up to Menuires. And it turned out to be a lucky choice, most of the 3 Vals was shut apart from Courchevel. We had a decent play, found some reasonable powder off the side of Sailure, played in the sticky slush and rode back down to the end of the snow.

Back in the UK now, wondering why the Brock barriers are in place on the M20 🙄

@Edukator – I did VT a few years back. Fantastic snow on the day we arrived. Then the wind arrived and all the snow headed somewhere else. Absolutely scoured and polished. But it was good up until then.
I’ll have a look at Tignes

@igm I’ve been to Tignes VC quite a few times and always had a great time ( although last weeks zero visibility 5/6 days tested my wife’s patience a bit, it’s the only “bad” week we’ve had out of quite a few years)

message me if you have questions.

Bunnyhop made a good point on the Rockhopper’s ski thread.

It’s tricky when most British skiers are recreational skiers/snowboarders, managing only one or two weeks of Alpine holidays per year. What I mean is, we have to ski regardless of the weather and conditions under foot, due to time restrictions.

There will be everything from great to lousy conditions in most resorts most years with some resorts being better situated to get a higher proprtion of good days.

Higher means colder and more snow but also more extreme conditons.

Resorts that are a bowl, particularly a north-facing cirque will hold snow and offer shelter but will be cold when the sun is low in the sky, only offering sunny skiing late season.

Resorts on Cols or features that funnel the wind can be windy when neighbouring resorts are still pleasant to ski.  la Pierre St Martin locally or La Rossière above Bourg spring to mind.

I’ve only skied 17 days this year whereas some years I’ve been up to 45, I haven’t been over to the Alps this year and there was no snow at all for a planned trip to the Massif Central X-C and hasn’t be for a few years. Today we went horse riding rather than going up to the Braca because it was going to be a bit too wild and wooly for pleasant X-C even if the snow was worth skiing. And things aren’t likley to get better. The season is down from 4 1/2 months to 2 1/2 months here and the number of good days in those months is also declining.

The Guardian ran an article about only the rich being able to afford to ski in the future. I reckon it’ll only be the dedicated and extremely hardy who will want to ski in the future as the only snow will be up where the increasingly extreme weather makes it unpleasant.

Junior is an ESF instructor and this year has gone off to the Alps to work the end of the season as things have gone so quiet here. He’s planning on doing a full Alpine season next year so as not to be quite so dependant on the weather gods for his income.

Anybody who has had fantastic weather for Alpine MTBing in the Summer should thank those weather Gods, get unlucky and a week of low cloud and rain is as probable in August as March:

Edit: Just checked some local stats: in March 27 days were warmer than the long term avearge and just 3 colder.

I’ve skied (on a snowboard) in rain, wind, snow, sun, flat light and mist.
I am that British skier, and I’ve often had slopes to myself.  Good quality Goretex and layering has been my friend.
I just fancy perfection sometime.

It’s very noticeable to those of us who have been skiing for many years (since 1988 in my case), that there is a definite change in the seasons in resort. In the last few years the middle part of the season has been poor with little snowfall, but early (even in December) and late there has been good snowfall. Most of the time the temperatures have been well above average. A few years ago it was 21 degrees in resort and I was able to dry all the washing outside in early January.
It really helps to be experienced and to be able to change ones skiing to suit what is thrown at one, even in one day. Hard pack in the morning, sometimes an hour of superb loveliness over lunchtime, porridge then cement into the afternoon.
But as the saying goes,’a bad day on the piste is still better than a good day in the office’.

I wonder if there is a link between flights and incessant kit buying and this change in when we can ski?

Supporting local businesses is often touted as a +ve thing. However the biggest winners are the huge corporations that own the resorts that are pumping more and more money into water canons at the expense of the environment and the local communes drinking water supplies/ aquifer and supporting national ski federations etc; who then spend huge amounts on bidding for the Winter Olympics which will need more and more snow making infrastructure: see this years Kandahar that was cancelled after huge amounts was spent on making and transporting snow. Syndicates like the ESF etc. are far from blameless in the economics and politics too.

De-luxe chalets keep on getting built in what were small villages that have become centre parcs. Where new generations of the locals can’t afford to live anymore.

Resorts are ferrying snow in by truck at night.

Ski tourism as we know it needs to end folks. Too many huge corporations are ignoring and insist on more and more growth to satisfy their shareholders. Meanwhile more and more lower level smaller resorts are shutting and leaving their infrastructure to rot all over the mountains. Volunteer organisations now organise clean-ups to put things back to closer how they should be.

I now think carefully about buying a lift pass, and more often than not head off on my touring kit. If I didn’t live in the alps I wouldn’t take a flight to ski on the white gold.

Disappointed that most resorts did not take the opportunity of covid to diversify, sure lots put in a few signposted ski de rando trails… but no wholescale change. The change that is needed.

Some provocative statements, maybe, but if it makes someone think then it’s worth my effort.

I think there’s some truth in that. Unfortunately for those of us who love sliding on snow but have never had the opportunity to live in the mountains ( or any closer to them than a flight ) the choice is either give up or keep finding a way to afford it

the huge corporations that own the resorts that are pumping more and more money into water canons at the expense of the environment and the local comunes drinking water supplies/ aquifer

Using renewable electricity to store water up the hill as snow has quite the opposite effect.

De-luxe chalets keep on getting built in what were small villages that have become centre parcs. Where new generations of the locals can’t afford to live anymore.

Yup, resorts can’t get enough workers because there’s nowhere for them to live. You can argue that the purpose built resorts have simply added more accomodation but an old chalet in a village in the Tarentaise is 800 000e to 1 500 000e and way beyond most local pockets. Owners are very often from a long way away and rarely there so the places become ghost villages out of season.

Too many huge corporations

Such as? It’s very often local and regional authorities becuase there’s no profit to be made and they’ve collected the resorts as the “huge corporations” have gone bust. The level of individual private ownership is very high.

sure lots put in a few signposted ski de rando trails… but no wholescale change.

Yup, and the signposting is often lousy, hunting for blobs of paint on trees (I’m colour blind). Cross country was very popular for a while but that popularity is declining as the general population gets fatter and unfitter, and the resorts which are generally lower down close due to a lack of snow. I only used lifts once in my 17 days of skiing this year and either took a bus, the leccy car or the bike to get up the hill.

Your comments aren’t provocative, Mugsy, they’re mostly just accurate observations. Hat’s off to those on this thread and previous ones who’ve used the snow trains. Skiing is just one of the countless highly polluting ways people amuse themselves with little regard for the consequences. In the oil crisis they cancelled the RAC rally but not the football fixtures which led to orders of magnitude higher petrol consumption. Skiing is an easy target/scapegoat but it’s tiny compared with the CO2 emissions and pollution due people’s choice to use gas central heating in poorly insulated homes and  unnecessarily large/heavy ICE cars.

If you want change start where the most can be achieved with the least loss of quality of life.

mugsys_m8 – I think a lot of what you’ve written is true.
Most people who take winter Alpine holidays don’t care about their impart. It’s an adrenaline junkies sport to slide on snow and almost like a drug.
There are a few of us who do care and make sure we don’t hop on a jet every few weeks to ski/snowboard, or keep a holiday home, or buy all the latest gear (some of mine is still Rodeo from C&A).
However there are far worse holidays imo for example cruising.

It’s hard to know what the future holds for our much loved sport/hobby.

@Ceepers I think I may have seen your board at some piste café or other out in Tignes last week though I wasn’t on here to compare or I might have tried to say hi. Glad it wasn’t just us having a challenging time in the conditions.  It was pretty testing but can’t help thinking it will have helped my riding a lot when I can actually see what’s happening on the ground again.

What did you think to the Sahara dusting?

“Using renewable electricity to store water up the hill as snow has quite the opposite effect.”

Nonsense.

the CO2 emissions and pollution due people’s choice to use gas central heating in poorly insulated homes

‘Choice’ is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting here!!!

Not quite a simple as nonsense. Mugsy was specifically refering to aquifers and local water supply. Sure, if local aquifers are being drawn down as a result of water losses due sublimation on making artificial snow and evaporation in reservoirs it’s not good. But that’s not the case in many resorts. Many are in areas with low permeability with abundant rainfall to fill reservoirs in the Autumn, the water would quickly end up in the sea if not stored. In terms of local water supplies those reservoirs are a source of water if needs be. It needs a case by case evaluation.

A far greater problem is climatic change. The lack of snow at altitude, rising snow line, early melting and disappearing glaciers, higher temperatures with higher evaporation means some areas that were reliant on melt water are now suffering Summer shortages. It’s a very different issue and shouldn’t be blamed on artifical snow production

@speeder

was almost certainly me waiting for my girls to get out of bed / find a toilet! suspect we will be there again similar time next year so maybe fun to hook up for a few runs!

was a weird week weather wise for sure & not really the sunny piste cruising week i had in mind – my wife didnt ski much. Between the total whiteout, the slush down low and the wind blowing the snow off to reveal the boilerplate ice underneath there were certainly some challenging conditions!

Daughter enjoyed it though – she had an advanced lesson on skis with BASS ( highly reccomend) and really got her carving dialled. She managed to link turns down the Bollin blue on a snowboard too so was super happy.

The sunny day ( monday) was nice over on the Val side & i had some lovely deep pow turns off the lanche chair on piste first few lifts on two of the mornings, first time ive properly white roomed myself on a powder turn, definately some “which way is down?” moments when the cloud moved in too though!

we drove as usual but left tignes friday night instead of sat am – made a huge difference to drive time and traffic starting in chambery on saturday.

How was our week?

Yeah, fair point Edukator.

It’s a valid point Edukator, however let’s not pretend that it’s done in the interests of doing good for the water supplies. I’m based in the Chartreuse so here and in the Vercors the water supply on the surface in the summer is a real issue. Whilst I’m  clouding up the ski tourism and ‘other’ climate issues…Lower level refuges here and elsewhere are having to close in the summer due to lack of water

It also uses lots of energy, and chemicals (admittedly the worst have been banned) the presence of the reservoirs is another artificial blot on the landscape, alters the ecology etc (see the recent rejection of planned bassin á La Clusaz).

Re. my use of ‘corporations’: again badly worded on my side: I guess I mean ‘companies or individuals that are driven by profits’. See SATA in Isère/ Hautes Alpes…..and their recent shrug of the shoulders to the environment in allowing the Tomorrowland festival to proceed on a glacier that is in its death throes. See also Tony Parker and his ongoing developments in the Vercors. I’m sure there’s more, these are on my doorstep so to speak.

What, came to my  mind during the Covid years, notably whilst skiing the 3 vallées on New Year’s Day 2020 🙂 having only crossed a handful of other skiers was how the landgrab was really really well executed. The most skiable terrain in the alps has been developed as ski stations. Sure, there’s loads of places to ski tour in great remote places, but they really did their studies in which places to develop.

I guess my badly worded ‘rant’ was more accurate in sentiment than being clear and concise! It’s been bubbling up at least over this winter and maybe each winter as I read and enjoy hearing about others trips. I have in the last few years been way more conscious about who gets my money, and I think that is a very efficient method to be doing better for the environment.

If anyone fancies taking a day on their winter holiday to learn about the changes that are taking place in the mountains whilst enjoying nature away from the hubub, then engaging a local accompagnateur  (or whatever the local term is) for the day or 1/2 day would serve to further their knowledge of the mountains and direct their money directly to someone who generally* cares.

* I can’t vouch for every single accompagnateur, but most are good people. I can at least vouch for myself ;).

Peace, out!

The Chartreuse and Vercors are areas where there are indeed pressures on water resources and limiting artificial snow production needs to be managed along with other uses.

I’m Ex-Welsh Water so look at the way water is used globally. Uses have advantages and disadvantages that need to be weighed up. I’ve read the Rhone-Alps reports and whilst the detail is accurate there’s a failure to look at the bigger picture, artificial snow making is often dwarfed by other uses.

I you zoom in on my local Vallée d’Ossau the first water areas you’ll see are the hydro-electric reservoirs, zoom a bit more and you’ll see the natural lakes (in the Alps they’d be the first thing you’d see – Constance, Geneva….), zoom in a hell of a lot and you’ll find a couple of artificial snow reservoirs, zoom to max and you’ll find thousands of swimming pools, 3.5million in France.

The impact of artificial snow making is derisory compared with the hydro but I don’t hear many protesting against our local hundred-year-old infrastructure which provides hundreds of thousands of businesses and homes with leccy. Pump storage means hydro can be used to store energy from other renewables and buffer demand peaks.

Evaporation is increased but there’s still plenty of water to go around.

Flood risk is reduced but without seasonal flooding the flood plains are less fertile.

Sediment is held back which means that beaches up the west coast are being eroded due to a lack of sediment input.

Fisheries suffer as many dams are barriers to fish. However in drought compensation water maintains flow so what fish there are survive;

Whilst leccy is the main objective river regulation is another function which means water supplies can be maintained. Llyn Brianne was built to regulate the Towy to guarantee water supplies.

Some reservoirs have a primary function of flood prevention. The Lac de Der stores water to prevent flooding in Paris. As a bonus it provides irrigation during the growing season, a bird migration point and water sports.

All this to say that reservoirs in general aren’t necessarily bad and reservoirs for artifical snow aren’t necessarily bad. It depends on how they are designed and used. I’d like to see more with a secondary function of pump storage. Even those swimming pools could be useful when the pompiers need water to put out the increasingly common and destructive forest/brush fires – but most people don’t make the required declarations.

You’l find people to protest against anything, notably on this forum: solar panels, wind turbines, methane plants, EVs, lithium mining… with reasoning that seems to hold up at first glance, but dig a little deeper and look at the bigger picture and the advantages out weigh the disadvantages. Some people in the Alps moan about ski resorts, artifical snow, villages at altitude, chair lifts, drunk foreigners, traffic but take it all away and the local and national economies will take a hit that will make the moaners significantly poorer.

@ceepers

We did a Friday to Sunday trip this year to miss traffic and make the most of changeover days, would happily do that again if we can afford it.

The sunny day ( Monday) was nice over on the Val side & i had some lovely deep pow turns off the lanche chair on piste first few lifts on two of the mornings, first time I’ve properly white roomed myself on a powder turn, definitely some “which way is down?” moments when the cloud moved in too though!

The wife got scared on the Sunday when we went up the Funicular from Val Claret after dropping the kids at their lessons, only to find that there was no distinction between sky and ground and the wind was evil.  I probably could have made a decent stab at the 6-12″+ of piste powder that lots of people were whooping through but ended up walking a lot of it until I got a “just go – I’ll walk the rest”.  She booked a private lesson for the Monday to try and get some confidence back and I got to go off and have a play.  I went back up the Funi and played about in the powder below the Vanoise chair most of the day. I have to admit I don’t recall seeing Lanche being open for most of the week but I bet that was pretty good fun.

I’m sure we would have bumped into each other at some point over the week without knowing it. I’m (mostly) on Lib Phoenix Blue Girl.

Ha! Looks like we can derail/ have derailed this thread!

Thanks for taking the time to write that Edukator. It came out as a good blend of professional experience and passion/ interest.

I was brought up to think Hydro was great, as it was a renewable source etc. My thinking around this has also changed in the last few years. There’s been lots of thinking in the last few years precipitated by  huge changes in my life generally. There is a good Patagonia documentary on their website looking at hydro schemes, notably the one in Albania etc.

I remember reading you’re a geologist? Well so am I: an Engineering Geologist. Having earnt my living for a certain period of my life on oil/gas pipelines and mining infrastructure. Your mention of Llyn Brianne brought the Scottish tones of my dam lecturer to my mind: “Sexy little dam Llyn Brianne”.

Interestingly, I bit my lip from commenting on another thread recently on Riding in Tignes, and people were criticising the fact that it was an ugly ‘town’ etc. So..back on thread…. I initially thought Tignes was ugly because it was only a ski station etc, and one of the ‘ugly ones’. However I remembered and re-learnt how the real Tignes was flooded to make a Hydro reservoir, and hence the ugliness and artificial nature of the ‘town’ as is now has probably more to do with the state’s other gold rush in the form of electric and re-building rather than skiing tourism…which aligns with your points.

Aristide Bèrges and my home area has a lot to answer to in starting all of this! Actually come tot think of it pretty sure it was a dauphinois who was instrumental in the 1st steps of skiing as a leisure activity in France…hang on…yes: Henri Duhamel. Pretty sure Chamrousse figured in the story too.

Velo-ski is becoming increasingly popular around Grenoble. The latest copy of 200 (cycling) magazine has just done an article on it

Anyway, off to ponder whether I put the skis away for the season or not. Sorry to the others for making you all yawn and de-rail the thread. Peace.

@speeder sure I will have seen you. Always enjoy a bit of Lib spotting. I’ve had quite a few over the years and currently got a Jamie short wide that is super fun in pow. Rode that on Thursday…

Had fun turns on first lift at lanches Weds and Thurs then headed over to the stuff off the Tichot and Grattau (?)

My wife had a similar moment on Sunday and didn’t ski much of the week. She’s definitely a sunny blue piste cruiser!

I can’t add much, other than to observe that I’ve been to watch Rallye Monte Carlo three times now and each year there seems to be much less snow in the lower reaches of the alps and far fewer local little ski resorts open now compared to 5 years ago.

I was up near Gap in January, it was almost 20 degrees most days, there was virtually skiing to be had and the little towns/resorts looked desolate.

I’d spent three days skiing in Pila/Aosta prior, my first ever ski holiday, and whilst it was lovely and there was enough snow, it all seemed quite perilous for the future. Since we came back they’ve had loads of snow, too much if anything.

A bit slow to respond, Mugsy, STW wasn’t playing ball for a few days. I used to vélo ski when I first arrived here riding up to an X-C resort. I soon gave it up as suicidal because too many skiers drove like dicks up to the Alpine resorts in the same valley. The bus is cheap at 1.8e x2 = 3.6e  with no need to hire skis. I tied my skis to my bike once, like Henri Sallenave the first person to ski in the Pyrenees in 1903.

Anyhow, junior finished his season in Zermatt and left this morning, my skis are piled up to be impregnation waxed and it’s over till ? 30 years ago I’d be looking forward to skinning up a few times in Novemeber before the resort opened around the 23rd of November, now I hope without conviction that they’ll be enough to ski the festive period.

tuboflard

Full Member

I’d be keen to hear how the lower slopes are coping in Deux Alpes

Not well based on last week. We arrived on Saturday and we were shocked at how green/brown the runs into town were.

Sunday nothing opened due to 100 km/h winds.

We then got 3 nights of heavy, heavy snow right down to the village but by the end of each day the runs into town were in a bad state and anything that wasn’t piste was green/brown.

We only rode down to the village once all week. All other times downloaded.

Everything above the lifts from town was absolutely superb and we rode a ton of waist deep off piste powder.

First time in LDA and we’ll definitely be back.

Thanks @BoardinBob, at this time of year, I’m happy to download and any runs open back to the resort in anything resembling passable is a bonus. I’m still tempted to go for L2A instead of Tignes as can’t see stuff above 2400m evaporating in the next week.

We had a fantastic week in Paradiski last week (30 March – 6 April). This week we are in St. Sorlin d’Arves in Les Sybelles. The high temps have had a massive impact and the Le Corbier sector is closed, along with all the lower villages. There are couple of runs above La Toussuire, and the links over to St Sorlin are intact, but everything is very sticky, even at 2500m. Water is pouring off the mountain.

We decided not to ski today as it was pissing with rain this morning ,and gradually turned to snow this PM. It is freezing outside now at 1600m, so hopefully things will have freshened and firmed up a bit tomorrow.

This week only cost an extra £175 pp for accommodation and liftpass, and we knew in advance it was the last week of the season. Even so, a lot of  local bars and restaurants are already shut. On Friday we’ll start the drive back to Scotland, where I think conditions have been similar!

Hi snow folks

Just got back from  Deux Alpes.  Family holiday with my wife kids (5 and 7) – was their first time on skis . I can ski ok (ish) We were there since good friday and as mentioned above had a mix of pretty good conditions apart from the wind.

I loved it but in hindsight it wasn’t the right resort for us. We went on a recommendation, coupled with the reassurance of gaurenteed snow.

ESF to be fair were brilliant but we had a couple of problems.

My youngest who is 6 next month was in the kindergarten bit as its 6 and under, and they wouldn’t go up the mountain with him (probably sensible) even though he was pretty good on the skis,  However my daughter went up on the second day and was pretty epic by the end of the week. If i had a do-over i’d probably say he was 6. The snow on the bottom slopes was patchy at best even after fresh snow in the first few days. so there was nowhere really for them to go.

My wife is a very nervous skier and pre kids we used to snowboard, she had a pretty bad accident (broken back etc) so its been a long lime to convince her to try skis (snowboarding is a definate no-no). This was our first winter holiday since then.

I loved going to the top of the jandri espacially on the few good snow days we had but it was mostly blues and reds, in reality too steep for her. The couple of greens there ware, were narrow with a drop on one side which she wan’t keen on either. Again the lower slopes were patchy mud.

I went to the top of the glacier a couple of afternoons with my daughter and skied all the way back which were some of the best times of my life. I’d decided to get the kids as many lessons as possible to progress their skiing  so double booked them. I can ski but i’d not dare try and teach it 🙂 Looking back i realise i should have done more with them and i’m mostly p****d of with myself for not managing the holiday well. However if we go away again they are a pretty good standard now so its a double edged sword.

Thinking of trying again early in the new year. Can anyone recommend a resort that has a good mix of pistes but most importantly lots of wide, not steep (gentle?) greeens??

thanks.

Hi @Pat12, are you going in school holidays? I’m guessing with the age of the kids then yes. I’d be looking at places with skiing at about 1800m to 2000m and above and expect crowds if going in school holidays.

As a starting list, La Plagne, Avoriaz, Grand Bornand or maybe even Les Houches (though sketchy snow record there of late and the rest of the Chamonix valley isn’t what you need). I really liked Grand Bornand, not as busy as other UK popular resorts, lots of nice open greens and easy blues and enough to keep you busy for a week if you don’t mind doing the same runs each day. Stop in in Chinaillon for easiest access to the slopes.

Edit. Realise that Grand Bo doesn’t meet my altitude threshold but it’s generally pretty good for snow record.

Hello all, hoping to maybe get away for a week’s boarding in the last week of April.  In terms of conditions at this time of year would I be best heading to Zermatt?  Or does anyone have any suggestions of anywhere else in Europe that might be snow ‘sure’?  Thanks

@andykirk the Instructor last week told me they ski on the glacier till July in les Deux Alpes.

Thanks pat12 – I just looked at the main lifts season dates for L2A and they actually run to April 28th so I will add that to my list of choices.

I’d add Tignes/Val d’Isere to your list @andykirk, they usually keep pretty much everything open until the start of May.

Ah @pat12 that’s not the best with the kids. My lad is 5 and was in the ESF Piou Pious at new year and they had him up and down a few blues. Absolutely terrifying as a parent as he’s now ridiculously confident.

Took the boys to the chill factor the other day and while they were checking my lift pass I didn’t notice said 5 year old taking himself to the top of the slope.

…but by the end of each day the runs into town were in a bad state and anything that wasn’t piste was green/brown

@BoardinBob I’ve found that’s fairly normal for April. There’s only ever the two choices back down from the cretes anyway: the blue to purple Jandri or the Valentin (down the right hand side for epic slush surfing this time of year) neither of which I’d really consider doing with kids at the end of a day, if at all in the case of le Valentin.

I consider myself to have been lucky to enjoy many ski and boarding trips in Europe, US and Canada.

I fear it wont last too much longer in its current for

@Pat12. Les Saisies is a great place for pretty much what you are after. Loads of easy pistes, and compared to most other resorts you can effectively go on a great journey linking blues and greens. The domaine is huge. The reds IIRC are mostly short cuts between these. Lots of trees and think of linked hills  rather than skiing on one open side of a mountain. Whilst not as high as the high resorts it’s pretty reliable in terms of snow cover. Had some great trips there with my two when they were smaller.

@Pat12 There are good recommendations above. My observations would be that you can get everything you want in a mega resort like La Plagne, but you pay for the access to a massive area, and little legs might not be up to it, and it is unlikely to be optimum value for money.

My boys, now 10 and 13, have graduated from ski school. We religiously put them in each holiday, but they often leapt up multiple levels as we would get meaningful practice in in Scotland.

They started their learning at Aussois, in the Haute Maurienne, just south of the 3Valleys. Aussois is odd in that it is south facing, and small. Although it has a total of 8 lifts, 90% is covered by two high speed 6 man chairs. Everything funnels down to one point, and you can’t get lost or go wrong. It is a perfect Sunny beginner friendly resort.

From there we moved on to Val Cenis, also in the Haute Maurienne. Here you will find 125km of piste, all on the north facing side of the valley. The bottoms of the lifts are spread throughout the 3 main centres that make up the resort, and are linked by bus if you need to take an easier route home. Almost all of the accommodation is in the valley bottom along the road so you won’t be in an apartment on a steep hillside.

The skiing ranges from around 1400m to 2800m, and we haven’t found it lacking at Easter for the past few years. We have been with the extended family with 10 adults and 11 kids (3-13) and everyone is catered for skiing-wise.

VC is just big enough to allow kids to get a decent shot in ski school in the morning and then ski the whole area in the afternoon. To that is simply impossible in La Plagne. An adult can only ski for an hour and a half before returning to collect the kids, and then your afternoon adventure is limited to less than the whole area.

Another benefit to the Haute Maurienne resorts is that the skipass covers the “home” resort for every day,.and you get one day at each of the other 4 resorts – La Norma, Valfrejus, Aussois and Bonneval sur Arc. You really can have a ski safari adventure, but do need a car.

VC offer discounts of up to 60% on liftpasses booked in advance via their website. You can get a week for less than £100. I booked our ski passes for Easter 2023 on the day after the 2021/22 season ended and saved a fortune. Alternatively book last minute with Sunweb or Snowtrex and you may get accomodation and liftpass included for less.than £200 per person

andykirk – Tignes and VdI seem to have loads of snow at the moment, and lower temps and more snow forecast for next week

Thanks everyone, i’ll do some research on those suggestions.

Once where is sorted i just have to deal with when and how 🙂