Skiing Off the (UK) Radar II - Haute Maurienne, March 2015

A snowHead

After my Jan 2015 skiing off the UK radar (Bregenzerwald) report, here goes for part II.

March 7-14, Haute Maurienne, France:

What a brilliant week Very Happy

- Virtually wall to wall sun (6 days out of 7 - light snow and colder temps yesterday morning, 14 March) and great snow cover for our week in Val Cenis. We stayed in a great little ski in/out apartment in Lanslevillard, which is a proper old mountain village (1450m), as opposed to a purpose built ski station.

Val Cenis is the collective name for a north facing area of 150km of slopes above the villages of Lanslevillard, Lanslebourg and Termignon. All have what looks like good access to the slopes and there's a free ski bus as well. The lift system is excellent overall with a fair number of fast chairs, including six packs and a couple of gondolas. There are a couple of weak links in the system where drag lifts/slow chairs could do with upgrading but nothing to spoil the skiing and we never had to queue all week. The skiing is high and varied, with a big vertical (1400-2800m) and there's a good mix of tree runs and open runs above the tree line.

Being mainly north facing, snow cover was great despite unseasonably warm temperatures that peaked at 14C at 1400m one day. By the end of the week there were bare patches on some lower runs and some were closed - still lots to go at though. Snow at altitude was excellent - packed powder/lovely groomers - with lower stuff being subjected to freeze/thaw and some nice soft, spring snow conditions. In general, everything came up well after overnight grooming and piste maintenance was excellent.

We bought the Eskimo ski pass - which allows you to ski a day at each of Aussois, La Norma, Bonneval and Val Frejus. Great value at €207 each for 7 days. We got to them all (by hire car - although there is a weekly bus service to the other areas) except Val Frejus, which we had visited before.

Aussois - Has only 40km of mainly south facing slopes but was an excellent day out. The runs were virtually deserted, main lifts are fast chairs and there's a big vertical of about 1200m both above and below the tree line.

Bonneval - Is a picture-perfect ancient mountain village at the foot of the Col de L'Iseran. The lift system is equally as ancient - slow chairs and drags - and there is only 35km of runs. However, it feels more and the skiing is high altitude (1800-3000m) so the snow was excellent at the top. All of the skiing is above the tree line. Another cracking day out on deserted pistes, although the slow lifts did become a bit wearing - especially the very cold top chair.

La Norma - Is a purpose built ski station from the 1970s, with 65km of piste. One or two slow lifts but a good system overall. A good mix of tree runs and open pistes and skiing from 1400 - 2500m. Decent snow overall but one or tow refrozen runs in the trees were a bit slick/challenging.

All in all a brilliant week at ski areas that deserve to be more well known by UK skiers. We came across only three other British ski groups all week and hardly anyone in bars, restaurants and shops spoke English. Even when collecting our apartment keys from the rental agency I had to get by in O-Level French of yesteryear. Other than the skiing, the big plusses of the week were:

- Authentic mountain village experiences of rustic buildings, cheese shops and farms.
- Fantastic scenery.
- Easy drives of 20-30 mins on good roads to the other ski areas.
- Easy, free parking in all of the areas.
- A lovely relaxed atmosphere.
- Cheap prices - ridiculously so vs the French mega-stations eg (on the mountain) crepes €3, Panini €4, large coffee €2.5, spag bol €8.5. In the village: Pizza €8.5, fondue €12, tartiflette €11, turkey in creamy sauce €8.5. A large beer wasn't much cheaper than elsewhere (€4.5 -5.5) although we did find a restaurant selling loads of different bottled Belgian beers at €3.5-4.
- Easy road access - Only about 30km of easy mountain road from the end of the Maurienne motorway.

Minus points were:
- Snow conditions meant that there wasn't really any off piste to go at.
- The Saturday drives to/from Chambery Airport were awful. Traffic was shocking between the Albertville turn off and Chambery. On the way back (after skiing until about 11.00am) we did the first 100km in just over an hour - with the last 40km to the airport then taking an hour and a quarter in stop start traffic. (Is that normal for late am/early pm in non-French school hols? We usually travel to/from Geneva without any problems either early or late on Saturdays).

Happy days Very Happy

- and here are some photos:

Lanslevillard/Val Cenis:

Aussois:

Bonneval:

La Norma:

A snowHead

deserted

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

Looks terrific. Perhaps it's a good thing that the vast majority of British skiers stick determinedly to a handful of resorts? snowHead

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Nice TR @mountainaddict, may have to take a look at Val Cenis. Been to La Norma - trip report on here. Not sure I'd bother with Aussois. But Bonneval sounds interesting for a day trip.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

We have just returned from a similar trip to that of Mountainaddict - albeit in Austria.

@pam w, I couldn't agree more. The "unheard of" resorts were almost deserted, with fantastic snow conditions overall and very little sign of scraped or slick pistes; but as soon as we skiied anywhere "heard of" things were very different indeed. It has been said elsewhere on Snowheads by others but, after 30 years of skiing, give us (relatively) small, quiet resorts with great skiing and great snow - over hundreds of km of crowded piste.

Our 19 day trip took us to the following:-

Achensee

We stayed in Pertisau, in a stunning location on the shore of the lake. From there we skiied the following:-

- Pertisau - very small but a decent vertical drop. Deserted, great snow and stunning lake views.
- Maurach - as for Pertisau.
- Alpbach /Ski Juwel - a short drive from Pertisau and the first time we've skiied the new(ish) linked area. Not too busy, brilliant snow and some great skiing.
- Kaltenbach - the not so heard of end of the Ziller Valley. A very large area, great snow, not too busy and some fantastic skiing. The home run (Stefan Eberharter Gold Piste) - a black - had to be seen to be believed. It was carnage but great fun nevertheless! As the only run down, at 4.15 it was mobbed and reminded me of Wacky Races! That run was very very hardpacked snow for the most part but the bottom third was brilliant, with giant slush bumps.
Kitzbuhel - en route to our next accommodation in Matrei. We parked at Pass Thurn and skiied the afternoon from there. Not too busy and some great snow.

Matrei in Ost Tirol. From our base here we skiied the following:-

- Grossglockner Resort - in Matrei itself and linked to Kals. Excellent, decent size area with over 4,000ft vertical drop. Again very quiet and snow conditions were excellent.
- St Jakob in Defereggental - another decent sized area, that reminded me of French style skiing. Mostly above the treeline with excellent motorway type pistes to ourselves.

Grossglockner was a 3 minute drive and the other areas were no more than 25 minutes away.

We then moved on to Lienz and skiied the following:-
- Lienz - deceptively brilliant skiing! The piste map says "Ski n the City" and it does what is says on the tin! Hochstein, the smaller of the 2 areas looks, on the evidence of the piste map, like it's not worth the bother. However.... Despite there only being 3 runs open when we were there, what runs they were! 4500 ft vertical on very steep reds and blacks, tree lined from top to valley, with absolutely stunning views of the Lienzer Dolomites, the valley and the city. Oh - and we had the place to ourselves!
- Lienz/Zettersfeld. No skiing to the valley but a gondola to 1800m. A great area that's worth going for the views alone. Relatively easy skiing on wide pistes that go up to 2300m. A nice family area I think.
- Sillian. - nice , varied area with some steepish runs above the tres and below tree line. Again a big vertical drop of over 4000 ft.

The Matrei lift pass covers 6 or 7 areas in and around Matrei and Lienz, as well as the Molltal glacier - so, all in all, it's an area that is well worth worth visiting.

On our way back to Munich we stopped off to ski at Gerlos/Koenigsleiten - a large area linked to Zell am Ziller. After a quiet couple of weeks we were shocked at the business of the place. Great skiing but very busy and, we thought, the steeper valley runs scraped to danger level. We enjoyed the challenge but were concerned by the number of (seemingly) out of control skiers heading to the valley. Higher up, snow was excellent - but again it just felt too busy. On some runs it felt safer to ski off piste, at the side to avoid the on piste carnage...

All areas had a great selection of mountain restaurants (that were never busy) and food and drink were very cheap. Half a litre of beer on the mountain was usually €3.50, with Spaghetti Bols at €8. In the towns we were dining out cheaply too - with large beers from €3.10, pizzas from €7 and Wiener Scnitzel (mit Pommes) for €10.

This season we have bought season passes (Tirol Snow Card) covering 87 Austrian resorts, so we are trying a few more off the beaten track.

Happy days!

I will try to post some photos of the trip once I work out how it's done....

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I absolutely love Val Cenis. We've been going there every New Year week for the past 7 years, and that looks set to continue. We stay in Lanselebourg though, in a French holiday centre which is fantastic, and incredibly cheap (last NY was €470 full board including ski pass). Great set up for kids, including single parents, so anyone keen to join us please get in touch.

The skiing is fantastic, high, north facing and the accessible off piste is amazing!

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@mountainaddict,

I think so. Modern skis and modern pistes. I think pistes are becoming too (err) pisted! I cannot for the life of me understand why Europe does not adopt the US/Canadian approach of:-
a) leaving more runs unpisted, to become moguls;and/or
b) pisting half of a run and leaving the other half "natural."

My one criticism of the areas we skiied in Austria (mentioned above) is that we struggled to find anything resembling moguls, except for the odd few bumps at the side of runs (ie off piste). However, I appreciate that that applies to much of Europe. Oh for a European Winter Park! (Sigh....)

great report, thanks - looks lovely

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Great report.

The Eskimo pass seems to be better value now. When I looked before it was about the same price as n * day tickets. It's only valid for the resorts at the top of the valley. The SMSF pass covers all the resorts in the valley and is only €120 for 5 days - but you have to spend each day at a different place.

You know it makes sense.

We were there last week as well, and agree with everything said, so thanks for saving me the trouble of a trip report!! Stayed at Termingnon, and visited Bonneval and Valfrejus, both of which had slightly better snow conditions than Val Cenis. We noted that if we had bought the Eskimo pass at Bonneval, it would have cost E 135, which we might do next time.@altis, Thanks for your tips, the Sabot de Venus restaurant at Termingnon was great, and so was Valfrejus. I couldn't help feeling that Val Cenis has become more crowded in the last 5 years, and there are some large building projects on the way, but non of the proposed new lifts from 2 years ago have been begun.
Great report, thanks.

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

Val Cenis used to be amazingly quiet for its size, and very, very good value for money. But within the last 10 years accommodation and lift pass prices have risen considerably, although they're still lower than better known resorts of a similar size. And it's definitely become more commercialised and far, far busier! It's still a lovely place, is very friendly, great for kids and families - and there is a good variety of runs, fantastic scenery and some good off piste. But it's not the hidden gem it once was!

The number of beds in the resort has almost doubled in the last 15 years to some 15,000 - and whilst there has been investment in new fast lifts the ski area hasn't increased much in size. The link with Termignon took it over the 100km marker without adding any worthwhile new pistes - but the development in the Combe de Clery still looks some way off. So in recent times it's gone from having no lift queues and empty pistes to some pretty hefty queues and extremely crowded slopes - this half term was the busiest we've ever seen it and avoiding sizeable queues was getting really difficult - even over lunchtimes.

And unfortunately Val Cenis usually gets less snow from the prevailing weather systems than resorts to the north or west, so the pistes in the last few years have suffered in peak times. Overall it still works for us in terms of accessibility, cost, familiarity - and the fact that the kids know the slopes inside out. It feels like a second home to us - but I can forsee the love affair coming to an end!

A snowHead

Cheers all! Looks like we struck it lucky with snow conditions, weather and deserted pistes/no queues - really took to the place and had one of our best ever (on piste) ski weeks - and that's in 25 years Very Happy

.

A snowHead

Oddly I thought Val Cenis was very much on the UK skiing radar. Lots of school parties used to go there. When I think of resorts little known in the UK I think of places like Saint-Sorlin d'Arves in the Les Sybelles ski area. There are some pretty big resorts off the UK radar like Vars or Les Sept Laux, both of which would be close to the largest resorts in North America. Then there are some resorts such as the very fashionable San Martino di Castrozza that it appears even snowheads do not visit.

But a big thanks@mountainaddict, for posting this good review. Having skied at Val Frejus and (for some reason I cannot recall) visiting La Norma in the summer I fancied going back there. However according to your photographs it looks as if the pistes there are very busy, my far the most crowded in the valley.

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

@mountainaddict, Two days at Bonneval would be about right for us; I prefer the snow conditions at the top and the off piste always has untracked due to the lack of crowds, plus the restaurant on the slopes is excellent. If it was dumping, I could spend a week there ! Val Cenis is still excellent out of hols. I`ll try to post some photos too, if you don't mind ?

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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@pam w, I do not think I have seen so many 4 and 5 star hotels in one place as San Martino di Castrozza, certainly more than in Cortina. The skiing looked fairly extensive, if generally gentle. Though the Pala is a brilliant mountain range to climb in it does seem wetter than the rest of the Dolomites and I expect the region probably gets more snow.

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

After all it is free

I rarely come across more than one British group per week in the Espace Diamant. It's relatively unusual to hear non-French voices. Heard my first German this week (he was trying to persuade her that the top of the black run was an easier way down than the top of the blue - he was right but she just saw the black and said "Nein". Most emphatic). Heard Italian in January (and having spotted the shiny metallic puffa jackets was almost expecting it). Spoke to some Dutch people today (in English) but they were local friends - not out skiing. Did hear a young couple speaking something Slav-sounding about 3 years ago. There are some Belgian cars about but I think most Belgians visiting French resorts are Francophone.

Saw a group of 13 Brits at a restaurant at lunchtime a week or so ago but they were people I knew, or at least some of them were, and regular visitors to the area.

@pam w, In the last 2 years, we have also heard Faroese, and Lebanese; my wife seems to be able to pick up on unusual sounding accents !

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golly @cstreat, I wouldn't recognise more than a very small handful of languages, one of them Fijian, which seems improbable......

Help!!

Skiing Off the (UK) Radar II - Haute Maurienne, March 2015

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