 Poster: A snowHead
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A bit of a delayed trip report from our trip out to Valmeinier last month.
This was our first year of doing 2 weeks out in the Alps and our first year of going DIY rather than through a tour op.
Our first trip was in Belle Plagne in Jan and we had a great time but having been their before it was not a 'new' adventure. For our second week we wanted to go somewhere new.
Cost was a big factor, as we all know going skiing is not cheap. I don't have much knowledge on Austria/Italy (yet) so we decided on France which was helped by a perfectly timed BA sale allowing us to get a good price on flights + car hire to Geneva at flight times that suited. We like self catering whilst skiing due to the flexibility it gives us, we can cook our own food and no need to be anywhere at any particular time. To find out where we would go it was as simple as a search on the Pierre & Vacances site for our planned dates and see where the best value accommodation was.
In the end it came down to between Valmeinier and Les Syballes and we plumped for Valmeinier as it at least looked a bit Alpine and the ski area looked to give some nice opportunities to tour about.
Accommodation
We stayed at Pierre & Vacances Le Thabor in Valmeinier 1800. We were assigned the Elan building next to reception and where the swimming pool is. On opening the door we were in for a shock, the hallway was just about as big as other apartments we have seen and there were no beds in it! We had booked a studio apartment and the description led us to believe there would be 2 sofa beds in the living room and 2 bunk beds in an alcove. The bunk beds were actually in their own bedroom with a wardrobe and window - would be very nice if you had kids. Looking back on the website none of the room descriptions match what we had. There was a large bathroom with one of those short french baths and shower over, remarkably when having a shower the water all stayed in the bath which was nice. Living room and kitchen were all 1 room with 2 decent sized sofa beds, a table with 4 chairs, a well equipped kitchen with plenty of crockery, cutlery and pans + a dishwasher. As well as the standard coffee machine there was also a kettle, yes a real life kettle with a handy socket nearby. Room had a tv but no english channels if thats your thing and the wifi(paid) was decent.
The only disappointment with the room was the balcony,we were opposite reception and had a lovely view of the door in to reception,the balconies opposite, the road and a tiny bit of piste.
Bootroom goes directly on to the slopes and you can ski back to door.
Parking is outside, there are large car parks or you can park along the road -parking was free and you could use airport style trollies to transport your kit if needed.
There is a Sherpa supermarket just down the road which we only used for bread in the morning as we did a full shop in St Jean de Maurienne on the way up.
The accommodation also offered a breakfast formula that could be delivered to you and some evening meals as well but we did not partake.
There is also a free outdoor pool open between 1700 and 1900 but apparently it is very cold.
Ski Hire
We have our own boots so just needed skis. We were not sure which building we would be in so booked the Sport 2000 at the top of the village via Snowbrainer. It was a short walk up some stairs but there is also a Skiset just across the road. We had booked noir level skis and my husband got a rather battered set of Head SuperShape Magnums which were ok but he did not enjoy as much as the Salamon rockers he got in Jan. I however got a brand new pair of Head Mya 5 skis. I've never skied on new skis and did enjoy them.Service was good, they accommodated my tall husbands request for short skis with no argument and again I got complimented on my boots (Salamon Quest 80s ladies, every ski hire place tells me how nice they are!!).
The Skiing
We had a complete bluebird week with warm temps, wall to wall sunshine and no snowfall. It was not even dropping below freezing at night so the snow was soft in the morning and a major slushfest by mid afternoon. So we were up for first lifts and skied all the way through to mid afternoon before calling it quits. The snow was good though and although large parts of the south facing slopes were showing rocks the pistes were good. Valmeinier is linked with Valloire and gives a total of 150km pistes pretty much everything was open apart from some of the non pisted blacks and the runs down to Valloire from Crey du Quart.
The lifts vary from gondala's up from Valloire, some fast chairs and some very slow chairs - with the weather the slow chairs were ok but I wouldn't have fancied them on a cold windy day!
What I did love was that after sitting on a couple of slow chairs you then had a variety of routes to come down c1000m vertical descent and as a lot of the pistes intersect you could mix and match between green,blue,red and black all the way down.
The ski area is made up of 3 hills, one in Valmeinier (Cros Grey), a middle hill shared between Valmeiner and Valloire (Crey du Quart) and Setaz in Valloire.
The piste gradings are a bit mixed,some of the blues are very easy, some of the reds are more purple and some runs are as they should be.Our favourite area was Setaz, open at the top then the runs head through the trees to Valloire.
The resort was busy on the Sunday and Monday then everybody went home and we had 4 days on deserted pistes, many times we skied a piste and saw nobody else.
Some of our favourites include:
The Selles blue run from the top of the Crey du Quart,this run heads up a valley with stunning views of the mountains around.Is steep enough you don't need to pole but easy enough you can enjoy the scenery. At the bottom you can link onto the green Myositis run and get all the was down into Valloire.
Cascade and Olympique black runs on Setaz - I'm no black expert but figure these are of the easier variety - wide, great snow and great for practising my short turns on.
The blue Armera run taking you back to Valmeinier 1500 was a nice way to get back to our home hill.
The red runs Genepi and either Cyclamen or Eglantiers to get from the top to the bottom of the Cros Grey hill were fun as well. Interestingly here there seemed to piste the lower runs alternately which made for some fun in the moguls - nice in soft snow but would have been a major challenge for me if they were proper hard moguls.
All in I enjoyed the skiing here,it was my 5th week on skis and it was great to go exploring and see where we ended up. ESF are the only ski school in Val 1800 and they were not interested in prebooking 1 or 2 private lessons so I had none this week,instead concentrating on where I left off in Belle Plagne in Jan.
[/b]Food and drink
We are not really big into apres or having lunch on the mountain. We tend to have breakfast, survive the day on water and cereal bars, have a beer on mountain on the last run of the day then home for a beer or two and then eat dinner in the apartment.
With the stunning weather a finishing around 3ish we did have a couple of lunches out this time. We ate in one the places at the bottom of the Jeux lift (can't remember the name), it was fine we just had a burger and an omlette and I didn't have a heart attack on price! We also has a late lunch at the on mountain restaurant at the top of the Jeux lift, one spag bol and one plat du'jour which were both good and around the 11 euros mark.
The restaurant on the Selles run looked great but we were never there around lunchtime.
A point to note was the beer at the top and bottom of the Jeux lift was the same price 6 euros 90.
On the last night we picked up takeaway pizzas from San Marco which was about 1 min walk from the apartments, 10-12 euros each and they were good. Sit in is also available.
Summary
I really enjoyed Valmeinier and I think it is a great place for improving or nervous skiers. I think it would work with families as well but english ski school may be an issue out of peak season.
We heard 2 sets of english voices over the whole week,the rest were a mixture of french,italien and polish.
At the start of the week I felt that it would be a one off visit, but the place grew on me and for a week exploring round the slopes it is a great place. We may come back in the future if we decide to learn to board.
The drive from Geneva is dead easy and takes a little over 2 hours. We stopped in the Carrefour in St Jean du Maurienne and stocked up for the week.
After 2 DIY trips I think this will be our way forward. We loved the flexibility of shopping in the valley and deciding our own timescales on when to head back to the airport etc. Whilst we didnot try out any of the other Maurienne resorts or head to Orelle for the day, without a car I think that would be difficult todo.
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