Poster: A snowHead
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I'm off to Val D in March and was doing some reading up. I read on the Ski Club of GB website that the pistes were under rated (i.e. a blue is more like a red, etc).
Is that actually the case? Or is a blue really a blue?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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There is one particular "green" run that jumps to mind that would be a red in a lot of other resorts. Generally as resorts go, Val d'Isere and Tignes tend to be at the harder end of the scale. Some of their blues would also be reds, and some of their reds would be blacks in other places IMO. This is not to say that I don't like the resort, I do, I think that the skiing is world class, it's just not that suitable for tentative second weekers.
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It maybe a France thing.... With it being Val D'ispair, they may have a slope attitude issue! I found difference in ratings across europe.
Austria tends to side on the upper rating , where France the lower element. Also many runs can vary along their length, even over a days usage. So it depends on many factors. Chill out, deal with what you find on the day! If you are in your comfort zone, maybe the next level is required!
Good luck!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Most of the blues are proper blues and the le Fornet ones are fine. There are, however, one or two of the return runs to the Valley (particularly the blue to La Daille which has tough section at the bottom) which might give you a surprise.
In general Val d'Isere is a bit short of good black runs but the off-piste is magnificent - and, when you feel up to trying it, much of it is not difficult (though some is very difficult).
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m00958,
I wouldn't worry to much. IMO the main thing that gives Val d'I its reputation as difficult are the runs back to the resort none of which are particularly easy. Many of the high runs in all the sectors are ideal for confidence building and if going in March may well have better snow than you will find in a lot of places with 'Better easy skiing'.
Long time since I have done Mangard from memory it is a genuine blue but contains quite a few flattish paths which may not be that appealing on a board.
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there are some good areas of cruisy runs up the mountain, but my own advice would be to download in a lift. There's skiing for all in Val D'Isere, and it's only the guys who insist on getting down on their feet, but who are not too confident, who suffer (especially when the snow is a bit worn, as some of the runs get crowded and icy). There's the infamous "green" (ha ha) down to La Daille which is often icy, mogully and crowded, which is partly responsible for the overgrading reputation. Just give it a miss. I am a fairly competent and confident skier but I found that at the end of a long day, and extremely crowded, that piste needed all my concentration. If I'd been on my snowboard I'd have taken it off and walked. Anyway, you need a bus back up to the main part of Val D'Isere from la Daille. Forget "Le Face", too, especially if worn; no point scaring yourself to death. My son spent the winter there last year and as a very good skier and fast improving boarder he enjoyed Le Face, but didn't bother with it except in fresh snow. There's a lot of macho nonsense about skiing down - just sit in the gondola and enjoy watching the others suffer! There are some quite long flattish runs which I enjoyed with my son last year, in a schuss on skis, but as a shaky boarder would have hated. You'll soon find out which areas are the best, there'll be lots of advice available and the snow should be great. There are some very good lessons available in Val d'Isere, too. One thing I noticed about the place, being used to quieter, unheard of, French resorts is the absurd prices in the mountain restaurants. A beer and a plate of chips seemed to cost a lot. Even in a quiet off-season week the place seemed busy, too, compared to what I am used to. But the fast lifts and huge variety of pistes is what you go for, not bargain cuisine!
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pam w,
I agree about the prices on the mountian but in the resort there is plenty of competition and you can eat at a reasonable price, if not quite as cheaply as elsewhere.
Personally I think the main problem with the reun to La Daille is not that it is terribly undergraded by gradient I think a blue would be reasonable. The problem is that it is the easiest way to the resort and marked as such so everyone takes it. In what is a busy resort it gets scraped back to an icy base with granular mounds all over the place. This compounded with the crowds makes it pretty unpleasant. If you can get it at the beginning of the day with fresh snow it is an attractive and reasonably straightforward run.
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m00958, I think Val D marks the runs similarly to here which is a bit tougher than most. Many resorts mark their runs (apparently) to flatter the skiers! However, if you read the map legend here you see: green = easy; blue = middling; red=difficult; black = very difficult. I think that's fair, and I've always found Val to be similar. Once you get up on Solaise or Belvarde though there's miles and miles of easy (boring) cruises!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I was told by a bloke from Evolution 2 in Tignes (and it was confirmed by someone on this very forum!) that Vd'I grades by average gradient, so you can finsd almoat anything on almost any run. Sounds barmy.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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How do other resorts do it then? Grade it by the most difficult part?
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You know it makes sense.
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There's a steepish section of the Mangard just below the top of the cable car that has a sharp right-hander at the bottom. If the conditions are a bit icy, it can be a little hairy getting the turn in. One of our party last year didn't make it and careened under the fencing at the bottom and over the edge. Fortunately the snow was deep and broke her fall, otherwise it would have been very nasty. She still had to be stretchered off though
There's some nice easy flat stuff further up and, as others have said, there's no shame it taking a lift back down at the end of the day. The same goes if you stay in Tignes le Lac. Coming back from Val d'Isere you have to come down the Trolles black run, and at the end of the day that's carnage.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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m00958,
Try the runs in the Solaise area (linked to Fornet area) - genuine greens, blues etc.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Most French resorts like to have a percentage of Green, Blue, Red and Black runs. So they just divide up the slopes they have between the different gradings. In general France is a lot more difficult than Austria or Italy, at least from my experience.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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richmond wrote: |
I was told by a bloke from Evolution 2 in Tignes (and it was confirmed by someone on this very forum!) that Vd'I grades by average gradient, so you can finsd almoat anything on almost any run. Sounds barmy. |
We do too! And yes - some resorts (Courcheval for instance) grade on the steepest part of the run.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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SMALLZOOKEEPER,
Do you have any cable cars yet, or are they not required as you do not have any pistes?
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easiski wrote: |
richmond wrote: |
I was told by a bloke from Evolution 2 in Tignes (and it was confirmed by someone on this very forum!) that Vd'I grades by average gradient, so you can finsd almoat anything on almost any run. Sounds barmy. |
We do too! And yes - some resorts (Courcheval for instance) grade on the steepest part of the run. |
The Courchevel approach seems more helpful for most skiers, I'd have thought. Mind you, finding oneself on a significantly steeper piste than one expected is often good for one's skiing and always good for one's character (but not necessarily for one's laundry bill).
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Nick L, thanks for the detailed advice. Much appreciated!
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richmond, Aah - some truth in what you say, but I like to think that Val D and LDA cater to real skiers!! So long as you know in advance and can ask which blues are blue and which are really red (and we have one blue that is definitely black!) then you can adjust your route accordingly.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I think all the pistes in Val d are easy... providing you are wearing ice skates! But seriously they are generally more difficult than other resorts, good for improving your skiing though I think. Good tip if you are staying in La Daille, try the giant slalom run on the way home its actually easier to ski than any of the other runs, they keep the snow in perfect condition and not that many people use it. Maybe you're not supposed to...?
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easiski, doesn't grading runs in a misleading way rather negate the point of grading them at all? I don't think it's a big deal, it just seems a bit daft.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Having repped out in Val D'Isere, from the number of clients I have taken to the medical centre I can say that piste ratings are understated. Val D'Isere is not ideal for total beginners, with the only blue run coming in to resort being santons. Val D'Isere has its advantage over other resorts due to the high glaciers in la foret and tigne. However a beginner would no venture this fair a field. There are better resorts for learning, Val Thorens, Meribel, Les Arc, as runsin to resort are more forgiving. Even better go to america.
For more links and information on french resort skiing look at my website which is currently under construction, but is on its way.... http://people.ac.uk/tjd20
hope this helps
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I think I'll pootle round the blues for the first couple of days, and then take advice from my ski instructor, when he sees how good/bad/indifferent I am. I've skied reds in Avoriaz and the Mont d'Arbois area of Megeve - how would anyone rate them in comparison to reds in Val? I generally have a problem with narrow. Steep is less of a problem if I have width in which to slow my descent (do I sound like a wuss? ). I love speed, but generally only if there are hydraulic brakes involved.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I agree that Verte is a joke bordering on dangerous. There's no way a week one skier would have relished skiing Verte last week. At one point, the green disappears completely and you find yourself on 'Orange' - a red piste. Not much fun if you were expecting a nice green run back to La Daille. The green run from the top of the Borsat Express had massive moguls at the top as did the pitch on Verte prior to the top of the La Daille gondola. If I'd spent my first week staring down those particular sections of 'green' runs I probably would've given up skiing there and then.
However, the runs at the top of Solaise, the glacier and over and into Tignes were superb last week. It's just a shame that the the runs into Val are so hairy for beginners. Santons was fun to come down but not suitable for beginners, forget the Face, Verte is a real mixed bag and Piste M down from Solaise was bare ice in the narrow section half way down.
Val d'Isere has great skiing for intermediates and above but beginners definitely need strong guidance and advice on where to go, what to avoid, and know when to take the safe option of the gondola back down to the village.
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Poster: A snowHead
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richmond, But who is misleading? Us and Val D who state the truth, or the "prissy" resorts who just want to flatter the punters? I would say they are misleading peeps into thinking they are better than they actually are, which could be dangerous.
dan100, skied Trolles 2 years ago (very well pisted), and it didn't seem to merit a black label to me - nice run, lots of variety of terrain, but the steepest wasn't very!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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easiski, fair point, but it seems to be Vd'I that is considered to be out of step. Presumably what the punters want is to know whether or not they can comfortably/safely ski a particular slope; that requires some consistency from resort to resort, and Vd'I is (apparently) not making much of an effort.
Your comment about misleading peeps into thinking that they are better skiers than they are suggests that there is some sort of absolute standard for runs of a particular colour. It doesn't matter how easy or hard blues, reds, greens, blacks, whatever, are; what matters (arguably) is consistency so that skiers who can manage a blue in one resort are not put in danger in another because a blue there is really a double mega black with knobs on. Which resort is 'right' is not important.
BTW, I skied (not as much as I would have liked) in L2A some years ago and I don't remember thinking that it 'undergraded'. (I was on a 5 day break; it snowed for about 3 of them to the extent that nothing or almost nothing was open. Must go back sometime.)
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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AxsMan, and Hywel, Regarding Verte, I loved it! - I just took it that Greens were like that. (I went down it on the afternoon of day three of my first ever week, last Feb) There is the bit where it gets narrow and zig-zags as it joins OK (Edit: oh actually, isn't it "Orange" which Verte joins at the very last section? - this is also a red) and this zig-zag section is notorious for being Icy. So many people are there and they just have the reaction "I can't go down there! It's way too Icy!" and they all stop on the sides. There's no way snow-ploughing that one would work. I figured the only way to get over it was to just go for it and it worked.
Further up though, there are some flatish parts. The very top after coming off L'Olympique cable car, there is the initial short bit which is icy and is a bit of a challenge to get down without losing a ski and if you take the wrong turning, you could go down FACE.
The blues were much tamer, or rather, much more consistent IMHO. There is a green at the top of Solaice which is nice though. Good for the next step after going on the nursery slope.[/b]
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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AxsMan, R us ure you mean Verte ? That would be a Green anywhere I've been? surely same everywhere .. in fact if you don't get a move on you would end up walking the middle section... more fun at the end but hardly a Blue or Red ...
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Agenterre, AxsMan,
The problem is most people do not ski the bottom section of Verte they ski the steep icy section of Coupe du Monde (ok) - Red run
Vert cuts across this piste on a path through the trees and comes out at the bottom of the Funival NOT at the bottom of the competition stade.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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stewart woodward, it still joins in with the bottom of Orange at the end though, and Orange is Red, if you get my drift.
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