Is Bride Les Bains to Val Thorens in early Jan possible?

A snowHead

Hi there,

Heading out to France for the first week in January. One night well be staying in Moutiers
so were thinking about accessing the 3 valleys via Brides Les Bains. It seems to be a 25
min gondola ride from Bride Les Bains to Meribel.

Ideally we'd like to make it over to Val Thorens and back again if possible. Does anyone
have a feeling for whether this is sensible/realistic? an estimate of how much time we should
allow for the lifts would be useful. We're both pretty decent skiers/boarders but if there are
any long flat sections it would useful to know in advance (the other half is a boarder and will
get upset if made to push for too long!).

Thanks in advance.

Fiona

A snowHead

Fiona, welcome to snowHeads

.

You should certainly be able to do Val Thorens from Meribel and back without too much difficulty. To avoid flat sections, I would suggest the Tougnette 1/2 bubble from Meribel, then the Dahu red and Martre blue to the Plattieres 2 bubble. Don't take the third section of the Plattieres bubble, but ski down to the Cote Brune chair and that'll take you to the top of VT. On the way back, take the Plein Sud chairlift followed by the Bouquetin funitel then the Lac de la Chambre red to the Plan des Mains chair and the Martre blue to Mottaret. The Truite green back to Meribel is a bit flat but very scenic and shouldn't be a problem if you avoid any turning! The Truite run can be avoided if you take the Pas du Lac 1 bubble out of Mottaret and then one of the reds down into Meribel.

Excluding the Brides link, allowing two hours in each direction should be enough.

The lift back to Brides les Bains runs until 1700 in January, and this is likely to be the limiting factor; you can park underground in the middle of Meribel (under the main lift area) quite cheaply, I believe and the journey up the mountain by car isn't very long unless there has been heavy snow.

Hope this helps!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I'd second everthing Alastair has said there and add:

Don't miss the Plan Des Mains lift on the way back from VT to Meribel it closes at 16:30 and they'll be merciless about doing so if there's snow on the Ours down to Mottaret. But the Ours will be a total bitch on a board and you'll probably walk half of it.

Deifinitely consider driving or maybe taking a bus up to Meribel from Moutiers station. It's got to be a very similar journey time to getting the Olympe bubble and it could save a bit of a rush getting back to Brides at the end of the day.
OTOH, sitting in a bubble does have a certain serenity about it that u don't get on a ski bus Laughing

Welcome to snowHeads Fiona

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Fiona, I did that route at Easter last year.

It is a 25/30 minute ride up the first bubble from Brides, and a 5 minute walk to Meribel centre. I am not sure how long it then took to Val Thorens, but I do remember that we had quite a lot of time over there and manged to cover a lot of ground and include lunch and another stop before we headed back. I would have thought that the 2 hours that Alistair suggests is a generous allowance. You should find much sorter queues than us as well.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

admin, as far as I'm concerned rule no 1 in skiing is you don't take Ours run, done it early on in my visits to 3V and it's a horrible long push even on skies, I would do almost anything to aviod it. However, I do understand it has been remodelled of late to make it better, but I'll let someone else report on that!

You'll need to Register first of course.

Ray Zorro, I would agree that the 2 hours I said is pretty generous.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

i did this last January from Brides it was no problem at all ,the secret is to get the first lift in the morning at 8.30 am which enables you to explore all the 3 valleys .Was back at easter with the car ,you can park at mottaret near the lift station free of charge ,its a lot quicker than the gondala also it a fairly easy drive from brides to VT . The other advantage of Brides with a car is the other maga resorts are in easy reach ,the day we enjoyed the most was Villaroger and les Arcs easy to get 2 and very quiet excellent sking

After all it is free

stevew, I went to Meribel last year: Ours is still rubbish, and is a cross-country track pretending to be a blue. To be skied once, and never repeated.

Fiona, Not sure how you're planning on getting to Brides from Moutier...if you've got a car don't stop at Brides to get the gondola carry on up the hill to Meribel, drop the car in the covered car park next to the lifts and you're away (only 2 euros all day last year). The gonola ride can be cold and slow and the early close can be a pain. That said, if the roads are bad due to snow then hop on the bubble! Brides is a good way into the 3V and you'll have no problems getting over to Val T - we had a great week there last year, but only used the bubble once, the car is a much better way up the hill.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Hi folks,

Many thanks for the advice, all very useful. We'll have a car (with chains etc) so if the roads are ok we'll probably head for Meribel
to avoid a mad rush back to the gondola. I'm really looking forward to skiing Val Thorens again. It's where I skiied my first red run in
2001 so I want to go back and see if it's really as terrifying as I remember.

Cheers,

Fiona

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Fiona, Welcome to Snowheads. Brides les Bains is fine as a base. To get the best out of the holiday you just need to get on to the the gondola to Meribel about 30 minutes before you think that you should be out. That way you wll have the benefit of the 3 Valleys at perhaps 60% of the cost of actually staying in one of the usual resorts. If you are prepared to put up with the 40 minutes bubble ride up to Merbel then this is a good option. Brides les Bains is also not too bad as a resort, although apres ski might be a bit limited. Generally a good option for the "Les Trois Vallees" on a budget.

snow reports

we are thinking of going with snowcoach to brides to stay at "Les Royales" SC apts, does anyone know how basic they are? Are they acceptable considering how cheap they are for the date we want in early March. Also is it easy to get around the 3 valleys area without skis during the afternoon if you stop ski-ing after lunch, we would have lift pass so could use gondola etc. Cheers Anne + Bob

pawestgarth@hotmail.com, welcome to

snowHeads.

It might not be a good idea to have your username as an email address (unless of course it's a spoof Laughing

) If you want to change it to avoid spam, Private Message to Admin (from Send/Read messages under the logo) telling him your new monicker and he'll change it.
Sorry can't help with your questions but someone will......

You know it makes sense.

pawestgarth@hotmail.com, welcome to snowHeads

. Getting around the Courchevel and Meribel valleys by gondola and cable car is relatively easy - but there's really no pedestrian access to VT or Les Menuires. Have a good trip.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Hi Folks,

Just thought I'd let you know how we got on...

Arrived in Geneva on Hogmanay, absolutely pissing with rain but that means it will
be snowing up high Very Happy

. Drove to Annecy, managed to get to the hotel in time for the bells
(just!). Had a couple of beers to get over the trauma of waiting for baggage, acquiring
the hire car and spending an hour trying to find our way out of Geneva - I read the
recommendations about avoiding car hire from the French side of the airport after I'd
booked the car - doh!

Anyways, the next morning we drove up to Meribel - acquiring some very expensive
(108 euro) snow chains enroute - there's not too many shops/garages open on Jan 1st.
Our car was supposed to be supplied with chains but wasn't and the rental company
(Europcar) told us to buy the chains and they would re-emburse us (which they did
fortunately). We parked in the big free outdoor car park in Meribel Centre and hoped it
wouldn't snow too much during the day - fortunately it didn't. We actually didn't need
to use the snow chains at all in the end. Driving round the car park was a bit hairy but
the main roads were pretty much clear.

The first day we just got a Merribel/Mottaret pass for the afternoon. The conditions were
great, powder in silly amounts and sunny, the other half had to dig himself out of a hole
after taking the board into powder a little deeper than anticipated Smile

.

The second day we got a 3V lift pass but decided against going up to Val Thorens as the
visibility was pretty grotty above 2100m and as the snow was great there was no need to
go up high. We went over to Les Menuires and stuck to the lower runs (a bit scoured in
places) and then back over to Meribel (back to the nice snow) for the afternoon.

That evening we drove up to Tignes Les Brevieres where we spent the next 5 nights. The
main road was clear but the road into Les Brevieres was a bit more exciting. The first couple
of days the snow was lovely, the second two days the rocks were starting to re-appear a bit
too often. I'd say that Tignes has a minimal or non-existant base at present! I think we skied/
boarded pretty much every part of Espace Killy. It's a great area and seems to contain very
few flat sections. My favourite run was the Face run coming down from Solaise into Val D'Isere.
The Trolles run into Tignes was probably a close second - in the summer it's used as a downhill
mountain bike track. I'd never go near it on a bike but on skis/blades it's great fun.

Returning the car to the airport was inifinitely less stressful but I'll definitely be going for a
bus/taxi transfer next time.

Cheers,
Fiona

Help!!

Is Bride Les Bains to Val Thorens in early Jan possible?

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