Poster: A snowHead
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Hello all... back to snow obsession after summer break...
Thinking of a feb half term trip this year and will NOT go to any mega-resorts in France after the experience I had in Alpe D'Huez last time I tried half term skiing...
Considering smaller areas, where a bit of tootling around may be needed in a car to get to outlying clusters of lifts. Noticed "La Bresse" and it looks kind of interesting as an area perhaps? Searching through posts here doesn't give massive amounts of help...
Of course, it doesn't have to be France and, if I could get a reasonably priced flight, I'd look at Austria for certain, but flight prices are stupid to Salzburg & Munich now, so that seems out.
Anyone know of any other clusters of small French resorts (to be honest, the mixed ability group we go in would be happy with 60km+ for a week's mucking about, no-one in our group is a distance-basher...) that may be worth considering as nice & quiet in half term (10th-17th Feb for our area)
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brian
brian
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carled, French speaking Switzerland ?
www.rma.ch
but don't tell anyone
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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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carled, quite a bit of France (but not Paris) are on school holidays that week.
Nice/Marseille aren't on holiday so the resorts down south should be pretty quiet - your group would probably be content, from a skiing point of view, with any of Isola 2000, Auron or Val d'Allos.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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carled wrote: |
Considering smaller areas, where a bit of tootling around may be needed in a car to get to outlying clusters of lifts. Noticed "La Bresse" and it looks kind of interesting as an area perhaps? Searching through posts here doesn't give massive amounts of help...
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It is the most alpine of the Vosges resorts but also gets extremely busy beyond the capacity of the lift system in places. Some more info here:
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Vosges/La-Bresse-Hohneck
David
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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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...it's also just down the road from me!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Thanks for the suggestions folks. Interesting links there.
Ben - we've been to Isola 2000 in the past. Decent enough place, lifts a bit old but the lift pass price is stunningly low! It lacked a swimming pool for my non-skiing wife though! We like to stay in one or at most two self-catering gites/apartments/houses when we go (group of approx 14/15 people). How is it around the Val D'Allos area for that kind of accommodation?
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carled, I'm not sure there'd be anything large enough. I think that the largest self-catering chalets in the ski resorts (as opposed to the area generally) only have 4 bedrooms and I can't think of any that are close to each other.
The director of the ESF in Seignus owns an old building in Allos which has been converted into apartments but I think these are only 1 or 2 bedroom places. At that time of year it'll be pretty quiet so you'd have no problem renting 5 apartments in the same block but that's probably not what you're after.
There's no public pool in the area although an apartment block due to open at La Foux this season has one - not sure if it'll be open to all.
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I lived in Luxembourg many years ago and I did a couple of weekend trips to La Bresse and another Vosges resort.
It's all a bit limited and in the main intermediate skiing. It was OK for a warmup early season but I would not want to spend a week there.
It is so low lying that the snow level is not reliable. The trips I did were very much spur of the moment as I lived so close. I think on both occasions we only decided on the Friday that we would go down on the Saturday. The other problem is that when it does snow, other people in the region all get the same idea.
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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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ben wright, have a few more questions relating to your area if you're able to assist? Best to do on here in public or via pm?
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carled, I've sent you a PM
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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carled, what about Aosta valley?
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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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Bumpety bump!
Hey, look, it's someone using the search function rather than starting a new thread!
The Vosges area of La Bresse, Gerardmer, etc, looks really nice. This thread's a bit long in the tooth. Has anyone been there recently and can say whether it still suffers from overcrowding or has it had a little pep up with better lifts and wotnot?
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Wonder how long until the first reply to the OP as if the thread was started 5 minutes ago?
Never actually been there, despite the fact it's only 2-3 hours down the road.
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You know it makes sense.
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paulio, skied there a lot at weekends when I was based in Strasbourg.
The runs were short but fun for a day trip at weekends but we usually went south to the Alps proper for longer periods. Very flat on top - nice cross country trails. Steep on the sides. We used Gaschney on the Strasbourg/Rhine side as our main base as the Uni had a base there - La Bresse reminded me a bit of Cairngorm or Glenshee with civilisation at the bottom instead of a vast desert of a car park! Gerardmer was too vulnerable to warm weather to be reliable. When conditions are good all the resorts are full at the weekend and pretty empty during the week, except for Wednesday afternoons when the schools all pour out to do their Classe de Neige instead of the normal indoor sports!
I certainly would not pick the area for my main ski holiday if I were based in the UK!
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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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Samerberg Sue, thanks! Am looking at it from the pov of doing two or three smaller trips, rather than a 'main ski holiday'. It's the closest skiable place I can find to the Southern counties of the UK you see. La Bresse and Gerardmer are only about a 6 hour drive from Dunkirk.
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