Alps 2017 rethink

My group were planning a trip to Les Arcs 6-10 Jul this year. I’ve just had it confirmed the LA season is 2 weeks shorter this year, and th eTransarc is still closed Saturday. We might still go to Vallandry, with an away day on the Friday to either Tignes or La Thuile in Italy.

Any other recommendations including self catered accommodation for 12?

Riding 7-10 Jul – not changeable
Preferably under 9 hrs drive from Calais.
140-160 AM bikes.
Mixed ability.

I’ve been to Morzine/LesGets twice before, and whilst it is an option, I’d rather not. What other options can I throw into the pot before our decision night in the pub on Tuesday?

Chatel?

What about elsewhere? Spain?

You should be able to find plenty of acomm on homeaway.co.uk in Bourg st Maurice. You can then choose your days riding. Even with just the funicular, and the Cachette open, there is enough for a couple of days. Then 2-3 days in tignes, then la thuile and maybe pila. Lots of places to go if you base yourself in BSM. 3 valleys not far away either

Funi not open on Friday 7th. We only have 3 days riding, and a preference for door to door riding has been expressed.

What’s Tignes like? We were going to do a day there last year, but it was still snowed out early season last year.

Is Chatel better than Les Gets? Not been over that side of the PDS.

I like the idea of Spain, but it’s far easier/cheaper for us to drive as we are under an hr to Eurotunnel.

IMHO Chatel / Les Gets is basically the same holiday/area.

I would roll out my prior suggestion of Chamonix / Verbier – they are an hour apart. With a bit of driving you could rent a place in (say) Argentiere for the week and ride both. Or you could do just one resort with a day trip to the other. Aprtment rentals in Verbier are easy enough to come by and you could stay in the valley down around Le Chable as the Enduro trails all finish down at the bottom. If you self cater prices aren’t too bad.

Chatel is Morzine / Les Gets from the other end, you might spend more time in Chatel BP rather than Les Ges BP but for the most part it’s the ‘same but different’.

Like OP after a couple of trips to Morzine we went furthe afield, there’s lots more to ride in the Alps than PDS, but bear in mind that there’s a reason why Morzine is the default destination for a lot of people, other resorts and areas are smaller, have far, far less purpose made stuff and won’t be as lively ‘off the bike’ if you accept that then the world’s your lobster.

PS if you’ve never strayed as far as Chatel from Morzine you’ve missed a lot of it – I know from personal experience it’s easy to fall into the trap of riding the motorway trials off the Pleney and both sides of Les Gets, there’s loads more to find and it’s mostly sign posted.

We definitely preferred the trails in LA, the lack of storm troopers and generally quieter, less cut up trails.. They seem to be trying very hard to mess it all up with their lift openings though. I would have thought weekends would be peak, with weekenders, day trippers and week-long holidayers, but they close half the lifts.

If there was another Les Arcs type resort nearby with properly open lifts I’d go for that. I’m a bit concerned about snow closures early season in Tignes, otherwise I’d go for that.

dantsw13 – Member

What’s Tignes like? We were going to do a day there last year, but it was still snowed out early season last year.

It’s good fun but more of a UK trailcentry feel. I think it works really well as a “day off” ride, the reds and blues are a great brain-out ride that you don’t really have to stress much about. (there is harder stuff, I didn’t have time to do all the blacks and purples but it seemed to escalate quite fast). It’s definitely not the same quality as sainte foy or the good stuff at les arcs, and not even on the same page as la thuile and pila… But it’s different enough to still be worth the visit.

La Thuile is awesome, if you’ve ever done innerleithen dh and enduro trails when they’re dry (by some miracle), imagine that on a proper mountain with 2 chairlifts. Just steep enough, just hard enough, rooty and dusty and buff. I love it.

Pila is irritatingly further away but is also awesome, I didn’t take to the bikepark at all but the descent down to Aosta is phenomenal, I just spent a day bombign the different options on that.

Don’t discount La Rosiere- it’s served by a quiet lift from Seez and has some really nice waymarked trails, again with a bit of a different feel. And remember you can hit all of the La Rosiere and some of the La Thuile trails while going over the col to La Thuile and Pila, so, if you’ve got one willing driver you can add extra descending into road trips to Italy, and end them with most people getting to ride back to Bourg.

You can also hop over to Val D’Isere from Tignes.

+1 La Thuile is awesome. You can get to Pila quite easily by car so opens up even more riding.

So, actually Tignes will be a good day 1 intro as we have a few Alp virgins in the group. All good stuff, as usual chaps!

Any opinions on how snow affected Tignes/Val is likely to be by 7 Jul?

How certain are you about the lifts schedule? Link? I was planning on going that week too

Link

Chalet company confirmed it too.

Pila is worth the trip. Especially if the weather forecast is poor, the passportes du soleil is shocking when its wet. Pila is the other side of mt blanc so has a different weather pattern

Verbier and then over the pass to Pila would be my choice. We will be in the area at that time travelling up from the EWS in Millau to Verbier and fitting some riding in in between.

Neb – Member

Pila is worth the trip. Especially if the weather forecast is poor, the passportes du soleil is shocking when its wet. Pila is the other side of mt blanc so has a different weather pattern

They seem to get miracle weather that side of mount blonk, last time I was down there Morzine was under a foot of mud, the passportes were misery, and we were all getting annoyed about the amount of dust.

How is verbier self guided? I’d always thought it was a place for a full MTB guided week as opposed to DIY first time?

Plenty to do in the Verbier area but its alot better guided.

That’s probably the same anywhere, but would you recommend it for 3 days for a mixed ability group who havent been there before?

La Thuile the trails are unbelievable.

Long,long,long techy steepness.

They seem to get miracle weather that side of mount blonk, last time I was down there Morzine was under a foot of mud, the passportes were misery, and we were all getting annoyed about the amount of dust

We had a similar experience, clay like uber slippery mud in chatel/morzine, we were camping so it was pretty grim. Drove to Pila and 30 degrees baking sun. Dust everywhere! Great stuff.

I do know Vebier quite well from skiing and walking but I have never been on a guided holiday there. A bit if research / maps / downloads from website and a gps device / phone app and you’ll be fine for a week. As Tracy says its better guided not least as you have plenty of options with van uplift away from Verbier itself (exactly same would be said of LA btw). Bike Verbier moved out of the village and into the valley sometime ago as a lot of riding is elsewhere. Alpine Roots will do daily guiding (pricey) which may be appealing for somethig special and shared amongst an interested group. When we’ve been in Verbier we have rarely seen other riders, even in the bike park. We have bumped into BV guides a few times riding the same trails as can be found on park enduro map. BV is undoubtably excellent (I have yet to go as 2 years ago I agreed with them thata June backcountry group would be doing too much climbing for me and 4 years ago they where full when I tried to book)

Dan the lifts are closed at the weekends to benefit walkers and families. Chamonix closes many lifts/trails to bikes for the whole of the peak season July/August months.

Can’t see anything specific on that link about les arc lift times. It implies they might be shut. Can you find the la thuile ones? Might base ourselves over there as it’s a lovely place

In French style, it definately says full opening from 8th somewhere, but I can’t see it now either! I’ve been told it by 2 local sources now though.

I’ve done Les Arcs a couple of times and loved it, BUT, the best day’s riding I have ever done there was when we went over to La Thuile via the Col du Petit St Bernard with a guide from Coolbus. As above, a bit like Inners but massively longer. A guide will help for sure as the best stuff was all well off piste.

Chamonix also great but when we went, the train along the valley was closed for engineering works and they wouldn’t let Bikes on the buses until the following week, so we had a 45 minute cycle up to Le Tour one morning in 25 degree heat which wasn’t much fun!

The idea of Verbier has me interested. Are the marked Enduro routes good fun?

All the marked routes are good fun

After years spent in and around France mainly with the White room, we’re heading to Pila this year, on the big bikes.

Chalet booked in Aosta.

Well be centering on Pila but trips to La Thuille and the one I can’t remember the name of in Italy. Might pop up to La Rossier too.

Italy is nicer than France, cheaper, nicer people, better coffee, better food, nicer beer, less flies.

Bardonecchia?

Tignes keeps popping back into my head, especially considering it’s a mixed ability group. My only concern is early season snow. Also, how busy is the Le Breviere shuttle bus? It only takes 8 & we are a group of 12!

Link

Chalet company confirmed it too.

Page seems incomplete/half-arsed, nothing new! Still can’t see when the actual opening date is from scouring their website, I’ve asked on the Les Arcs FB page but no responses. Also can’t see about funicular closure on Fri 7th July? Where/who are you getting the info from?

We’re in BsM 29th June – 10th July, expected lifts to open 1st July based on previous visits so this mucks things up a bit. Couldn’t be helped as was only time I could get away from work. Having the funicular/Cachette and lobster pots / Vallandry open from 1st July will help greatly.

Does anyone have info about any off-limits areas for this summer? Heard rumours about a MTB ban in Seez area which might restrict the descents east of the pipes (Double Header, etc). Is the area around Vernettes chapel still off-limits? And we had some hostility on La Varda last time – that was 2015 though.

Tignes keeps popping back into my head, especially considering it’s a mixed ability group. My only concern is early season snow. Also, how busy is the Le Breviere shuttle bus? It only takes 8 & we are a group of 12!

I think if Tignes trails are open while I’m there I’ll pop along for a day just to see what they’re like. We’re staying in BsM this time so not far along the road. I’ve not looked yet but previous years involved free lift passes for Tignes to tempt folk away from the other places.

I’ve done both Tignes and Verbier in the last few years, both times on 160mm bikes.

Tignes is good fun, the blues and reds are nice, fun trails, nothing super technical. I went in early July and only a couple of trails were closed for snow – wasn’t an issue really. The best stuff in my opinion were the all-mountain trails. The trails down into Val are awesome and there is a good run back from Bellevue into Tignes as well for the way back. The shuttle bus is also great and always had spare seats when we used it but I don’t think it would take 12 in one load! There is more than one bus so you might be able to organise something with them if you knew roughly what time you would need collecting.

I did three days in Verbier, in which I rode almost every marked trail at least once. The downhill trails are better than Tignes more techy and more variety in terrain. Again the all mountain trails are really good, there is a bus service that runs up the other side of the valley and the trail down from there is definitely worth doing although take a separate map as the trail map can be a bit misleading at times – this may have been updated since though as they were relatively new routes when I was there.

Overall I would say Verbier has the better trails but fewer of them and less range in ability – for more than a few days would be worth linking with another area. Tignes is probably better for lower costs and mixed ability groups.

Lift passes still free in Tignes, and open from 1 Jul.
The chalet company I use (PeiseyVallandryRentals) have confirmed full resort opening 8 Jul, Vallandry/Lonzagne open daily from 1st. Funi/cachette open 1/2 (weekend of LesArcs Enduro2 which may mean trail closures). Transarc/Arcabule doesn’t open Saturdays either which makes it all a right PITA.

I’ve been looking on YouTube at vids of Wild10, Wonderboisses, VeryBikeTrail, IceTignes Enduro trails in Tignes/Val and reckon that should be perfect.

Just need to sort accommodation out now – saw the recommendation for Chalet Chardons – just need to make sure the Bus Uplift from Le Breviere is up to it for a large group.

Clockarockin – perfect, cheers!!

+1 Verbier but definitely better with guides, preferably Bike Verbier who know the area better than anyone and will get you to trails you wouldn’t believe. Their accommodation and food is superb too, plus they maximise your riding time and will happily split groups according to ability/fitness/interests.

No votes for Les Deux Alpes + Alp D’Huez? Are they closed that time of year?

I wouldn’t stay in chatel again. Place was like a ghost town when we visited for the passportes 2 years ago.

Lots of good info here, and Ive spent the last 2 days googling lift maps, youtube videos and accommodation. Lets see what the group thinks tomorrow night!