 Poster: A snowHead
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Has anyone stayed at the above hotel before? We’re heading out there on 21st Jan. It’s situated next to the Viking lift so looks like we should be able to ski back to the door (conditions permitting). Does anyone know how easy it is to access the main areas from there? Can we ski over or would be easier just to walk to the Jandri or Diable lifts. Any other tips or advice for L2A?? Never been so looking forward to it. 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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We stayed there about ten years ago and loved it. Very charming French family run hotel. At the time we were the only Brits in and got a lot of attention from the staff who all wanted to practice their English. Great food too. No need to walk to the lifts. Out the front door and on the Viking drag lift and then a wriggle cross to wherever you fancy. There’s plenty of posters who know the area much better than I to comment on the area in general, but I couldn’t resist remembering the lovely Melezes. My kids (both adults now with plenty of travel under their belts ) still talk about it very fondly.
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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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not sure how much skiing back to the hotel will be done in the current conditions
Was in L2A last year. I would never go back. The upside mountain layout does not work for me & poor conditions trying to get back down in the slush was not a happy experience. Basically bored due to lack of variety & closed pistes.
L2D town is a one-way loop for buses, so you would need to walk to Diablo lift (decent bakery on the road near it), but you could get the bus to Jandri/main tourist office.
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| Quote: |
poor conditions trying to get back down in the slush was not a happy experience
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Well no, it wouldn't have been. Bit predictable, I'd have thought. When I've been to LDA, even in good conditions, I've generally downloaded by lift.
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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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Glad to hear you liked the hotel snowlamb! It was our main reason for picking L2A as it still sounds absolutely lovely (especially the food!!).
Sorry to hear that you wasn't impressed with the resort, Gored. Really hope the conditions improve soon but there still seems to be decent skiing higher up. If we have to download to get down it won't be the end of the world.
If it is possible to ski back to the resort is it true to avoid the green/blue and take the red or black down? I've heard that the green run is really narrow and busy? My husband and I are intermediate skiers but we can get down steeper slopes (albeit very slowly!!).
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Downloading seems often the way to go in LdA - given that it has lots of higher altitude skiing it can be a waste of time to grapple with lower areas and loads of incompetent skiers who refuse to take a lift down.
If you're interested, there is some good, accessible, off piste for practising and, of course La Grave next door. Expert help needed, obviously, and I was mostly with a local instructor but I certainly didn't find the options to lack variety! At times I found the variety quite challenging.....
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Thanks for the update Pam, definitely makes more sense to download when you put it like that!
Reading through some of the old threads it seems like L2A is a bit of a marmite resort with quite a few folk saying they wouldn't go back. For us it seemed to tick all the boxes (on paper) and the hotel looks lovely, but we'll have to see for ourselves in a couple of weeks!!
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Were heading off to L2A tomorrow and staying in the Sherpa so no help on the hotel front but hopefully have some tips for you when we get back.
At the moment looks like we wont be skiing back to the hotel due to conditions, and downloading will probably suit our group better anyway, but also looks like there's going to be a bit of snow next week so hopefully one day can ski top to bottom.
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That would be great Poshprop. Hope you have an amazing time and yes the forecast for next week does look promising!
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It's not just a matter of snow - even when there's plenty of snow the Valentin run down (is that the one?) is really not worth it, especially at the end of the day with lots of tired and/or nervous skiers.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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There at the moment.if its still like this take the Jandri up to the top. The greens at the resort are actually browns!
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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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L2A gets so much negative press on here. Have skiied L2A many times at different times of the season.
There's lots of perfectly good skiing to be had, some decent restaurants and enough to keep you going for a week.
If there isn't much snow at village level perhaps consider not skiing back. Downloading is very easy and many do because there are lots of very enjoyable blues and greens up the hill. There is a blue down which can be busy and choppy. The Green is pretty much a zigzag piste machine track which can actually be a bit daunting for beginners who are not confident of many multiple turns on narrow tracks. The black - Diable I think - is actually pretty manageable but can be a bit slushy. There is nothing particularly steep on it.
The Jandri lift is the main access to all the skiing. From memory it is two or three sections and takes you to either the beginners area, halfway up to a network of blues, reds and greens or to the bottom of the glacier.
Enjoy!
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| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
poor conditions trying to get back down in the slush was not a happy experience
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Well no, it wouldn't have been. Bit predictable, I'd have thought. When I've been to LDA, even in good conditions, I've generally downloaded by lift. |
I did the first & last day. Rest was come down via the gondola. The other side was not skiable. So I could not visit La Troika unless on foot.
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You know it makes sense.
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I have good friends that stayed there about 3 years ago - said it was nice. Depends if pandemic has changed anything I guess.
I would ignore the L2A doom mongers. You just need to remember that it is an "upside-down" ski resort - nursery slopes up high, a few stiff bits back into resort. It is one resort where the downward "gondola of shame" is perfectly acceptable.
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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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We're here now and it's raining  and 2 out of the four in our group have had a bad dose of sickness and diarrhea and the Sat Nav took us up a very terrifying almost single track hair pin road with very steep drops to the sides that was actually a two way road.
BUT our hotel,The Sherpa, is excellent. Room good, food excellent and staff incredibly friendly and efficient. I really like the town too with plenty of good shops and bars. We booked through Sunweb and they have been great, everything has just worked with them and had good communications from the reps who have been friendly too.
I had a trip up to the top of the Jandri gondolas today and came straight back down as conditions were too tough for me but there is snow up there. I skied down Jandri 1 today and the snow wasn't great and very busy so it will be skiing up the top and downloading in future.
So hopefully tomorrow as it's my 50th Birthday our group gets back to full health and the weather improves so we can get up top ski and enjoy a beer
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Poster: A snowHead
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We're here now and it's raining and 2 out of the four in our group have had a bad dose of sickness and diarrhea and the Sat Nav took us up a very terrifying almost single track hair pin road with very steep drops to the sides that was actually a two way road.
BUT our hotel,The Sherpa, is excellent. Room good, food excellent and staff incredibly friendly and efficient. I really like the town too with plenty of good shops and bars. We booked through Sunweb and they have been great, everything has just worked with them and had good communications from the reps who have been friendly too.
I had a trip up to the top of the Jandri gondolas today and came straight back down as conditions were too tough for me but there is snow up there. I skied down Jandri 1 today and the snow wasn't great and very busy so it will be skiing up the top and downloading in future.
So hopefully tomorrow as it's my 50th Birthday our group gets back to full health and the weather improves so we can get up top ski and enjoy a beer
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Poshprop, Happy 50th - that's a big one!
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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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Lots of warnings on SHs about not following sat navs in the mountains. They do take you up some stupid roads because they don't know about snow etc. But glad you got there and that the hotel is good - must be a huge relief to have arrived. Hopefully when you wake up, it'll be snowing. 
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@poshprop - is there more than one way up?
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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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Getting to L2A certainly doesn't require you to go up a terrifying single track road!! It's a major resort. There's a nice big road with numbered bends on it. Not in the least terrifying.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| pam w wrote: |
| Getting to L2A certainly doesn't require you to go up a terrifying single track road!! It's a major resort. There's a nice big road with numbered bends on it. Not in the least terrifying. |
It appears from Google Maps that there’s only the one road up (from the lake). It would terrify me if I had to pedal up it but I don’t remember it being scary in the car. Maybe there’s a way up from Venosc?
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Well when I drove up, several times, it was on a perfectly OK road - with great big numbers painted on the hairpins, which is quite entertaining. But I dare say there are some starting points from which it makes no sense to drive directly to Les Deux Alpes. From Grenoble way it's not an issue. But really, its worth reinforcing the warning NOT to blindly follow a satnav in the Alps.
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Les Deux Alpes gets enough criticism here without people claiming it's a death defying journey to get there. I've walked up from Venosc (in summer, having gone down in the lift) and whilst I have no idea what the road's like I can imagine it might be quite hairy. That escarpment is very steep.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@pam w, So there is a road up from Venosc? Maybe that’s the harem-scarem one?
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I've no idea whether there's a road - we walked up a footpath. Sorry, didn't make that clear.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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There's campsite down at Venosc and think SHs who have been skiing in L2A in summer stayed there - there's a report somewhere. So there must be a road, come to think of it.
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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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@poshprop - happy birthday for tomorrow. Let’s hope it’s a snowy one!  ️
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| Red Leon wrote: |
| pam w wrote: |
| Getting to L2A certainly doesn't require you to go up a terrifying single track road!! It's a major resort. There's a nice big road with numbered bends on it. Not in the least terrifying. |
It appears from Google Maps that there’s only the one road up (from the lake). It would terrify me if I had to pedal up it but I don’t remember it being scary in the car. Maybe there’s a way up from Venosc? |
Yes, the official way of driving to LDA is to drive as far as the lake, just before you reach the lake you pass through a very short tunnel (about 20 metres long), once you exit the tunnel the road to LDA is immediately off to the right, the road to the left actually goes over the barrage and continues alongside the lake in the direction of La Grave. However some sat navs indicate turning off a few km before that up a narrow hairpin road. I've driven it out of interest in summer, there's no way I'd choose to do that in winter!!
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You know it makes sense.
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Thanks for the birthday wishes and we're back from L2A and we had a great week.
No idea the whole road thing would cause such debate but its exactly as @Alastair Pink says, we completely followed the Sat Nav rather than actually look at a map and check and we hair pinned of the main road up a rather narrow hairpin road with some steep drops. Our fault and no harm done as conditions were fine and we wont let that happen again. To be fair did recognise straight away it wont right but car behind us and no room to stop and turn around. We came back the proper way which is an absolute joy!
Didnt really notice Hotel Melezes @Surferrosa but know exactly where Vikings is and thats a great spot. The apres in the Umbrella bar very close to there was amazing the night we went. Superb DJ got the place bouncing. Youll be able to ski no problem or if you download it wont be far to walk.
Really liked L2A as a town, good atmosphere and our hotel The Sherpa was great. Would recommend for a drink or too. The smokescreen a very nice peated whisky and chartreuse cocktail!
I think the snow will be amazing when you go and there was plenty there up top when we were there last week.
Enjoy
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