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The Golden Era of Skiing

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
saikee wrote:

My skiing grew up in France, had 8 years owning a static caravan in Chamonix.


That sounds worth a thread in its own right.

How did you end up owning a static caravan ? How was it for comfort ? What happened to it ?

I automatically go for a hotel, but your posts seem to be accounts of unusual DIY trips. I thought you would be towing your own caravan though.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
saikee wrote:
rob@rar,

I was in Switzerland 3 week in Jan. There were a few runs where I encountered the number of skiers less than the number of fingers in my hand. I did one run from the top to the bottom of a mountain and couldn't see another soul on the piste. Yes France can be quiet too but to a different scale.

That's no different from how it is in Les Arcs in January, so I don't agree that it's on a different scale in France. In fact, even this season's New Year's Day was a bit like that in one corner of the Les Arcs domain.
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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?
rob@rar,

You have picked Les Arcs, which I believe you own a property there, to represent France for comparison with the Swiss resorts. Les Arcs is my favourite in Tarentaise Valley because it is well spread out, has a good variety of entertaining runs so it is not easy to get overcrowded. You may like to compare it with places like Flaine, La Plagne, Les Menuires or Meribel.

In any case my view represents only one individual among the millions skiers. Despite having sampled over 100 facilities of which 30 of them are in France I have not tried resorts further south than L2A/LDH/Serre Chevalier. My personal view is based on having skied 14, 18 and 23 facilities in Italy, Switzerland and Austria respectively. I count a facility roughly on the basis it sells its own ski pass so a place like 3 Vallees is treated as 3 facilites of Courchevel, Meribel, Val Thoren by me. I recorded Les Arcs as one facility of Vilaroger/Vallandry/Plan Peisey/Montchavin.


Latchigo,

There had been only one camp site in Chamonix. My best friend has a colleague who ran a static caravan there, called mobile home locally. He once let us to sample his caravan there. It so happened that the site had an empty mobile home on sale so my friend and I formed a syndicate to purchase and own it. After 8 years the site owner claimed to develop the place into apartment blocks so we virtually forced out and had to leave everything there as it was impractical to take the caravan back to UK.. It was cheap for us to buy, think it was £11.5k but we didn’t get anything back at the end.

I like the static caravan as it has two double bedrooms, cooking facilities, electric heaters, shower and dining area. The trouble was in later years the owner didn’t get much business in winter so he shut down the site and re-opened it at the end of Jan or the beginning of Feb. I did use it as a base in summer while motorcycling the Alps.

The camp site is still there with some static caravans left and only a few apartment blocks have been erected. It is about midway between La Fegere and Brevent.

We used to pay well over £2500 per annum for the site fee and electricity. Don’t think we used the facilities anywhere to justify the cost but it did buy us a false sense of being “local”.
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saikee, So did you initially see the static caravan as a place for Summer holidays and later decide to try it in Winter ?

Or start straight off with ski holidays ? You would need to be confident it would be warm enough in Winter.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Latchigo,

I didn't think I could learn downhill skiing when we bought the mobile home as we were well past the normal age for such sport. We settled for the cross country skiing but it was too tough. The rest is history.

The mobile home is warm enough in winter. We prefer to switch off the heating when going to sleep because you get sound sleep when it is cold. We were many times better than the campers on the same site as they got no source of heating and nowhere as well insulated as we were in the mobile home.

My view was if we learned downhill skiing then we got the money worth out of the mobile home. It is a stunning experience to be able to wake up in the morning to the full view of Mont Blanc. Chamonix has both winter and summer seasons. Being right at the border of France with Italy and Switzerland so it is a very nice base point for going to Europe.
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 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
saikee wrote:
rob@rar,

You have picked Les Arcs, which I believe you own a property there, to represent France for comparison with the Swiss resorts.

I have a place in les Arcs but I ski elsewhere as well (this season, for example, I'll probably ski more in other resorts than I do in Les Arcs including a week in Italy and likely a week in Austria). So when I offer my opinion and experience it's based on more than just Les Arcs. The reason that I've been asking you these questions is that it seems to me that you're making some sweeping generalisations which are totally at odds with my experience. This season, for example, Les Arcs in the first week of Feb was no busier than Pila, a relatively small Italian resort, was in mid-January. The season before last in Zinal and the rest of the Val d'Annivers, mid size resorts in Switzerland, was about the same as what I would normally expect from any of the Tarentaise resorts outside of school holidays: maybe some short queues at bottleneck lifts but not many queues elsewhere, normally fairly quiet on the pistes but some of the 'main' runs back to the village had more traffic (which you can normally avoid in a big resort for most of the day). But you seem to indicate, like a number of other similar comments, that France = bad, busy and dangerous, while resorts in Austria, Switzerland and Italy + good, quiet and safe. As I said earlier, this is not my experience hence my comments and questions to you to try to understand why you've reached that judgement.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
saikee, Interesting. A different route in to Winter sports. As a year round destination, I can see the appeal of Chamonix. Nobody would worry about warmth in a caravan in the Summer either.

Amount of capital tied up is extremely low compared to a chalet or apartment. You would not have the bother of towing either.
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 brian
brian
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Bode Swiller wrote:
One day you'll get over Maggie.


Pas jusqu'à ce qu'on peut danser sur sa tombe. wink
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
rob@rar,

It is possible that a SH could be sensitive to the criticism of a resort in which he/she has a vested interest even though the comments may be a general comparison.

There are several posts here already pointing out that skiers of certain Alpine countries visit their nearby small facilities regularly as a weekend recreation. As their resorts are not big or profitable enough to be targeted by the British TOs the facilities are seldom flooded by the packaged visitors among whom may be a significant number of green skiers not familiarise or too bother with the skiing code and experts seeking thrills they can only get once or twice in a year. In my view the absence of these types of skiers can make a difference to the safety risk in a skiing resort. People who can ski weekly are seldom a risk or a nuisance to other piste users. Thus if they are in the majority in a quiet resort having no infrastructure and possibility to accept a huge sudden influx of foreign visitors then the risk of an accident to an outside visitor is not the same as a French mega resort where the skiing/boarding skill level is likely to be more variable due to the randomness and high number of outside visitors. The fact that other Alpine nationals are more courteous towards the outside visitors and behave more orderly themselves also help.

It will be interesting to know the reason why as a chalet owner in Les Arcs when given the chance you didn’t choose to spend your skiing in other French resorts but to Italy, Switzerland and Austria when according to you there is no obvious difference between them.
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
saikee wrote:


It will be interesting to know the reason why as a chalet owner in Les Arcs when given the chance you didn’t choose to spend your skiing in other French resorts but to Italy, Switzerland and Austria when according to you there is no obvious difference between them.


I don;t think Rob has ever suggested there is no obvious difference between them.

Just taht he doesn;t see any obvious difference in how crowded and/or expensive they are.

Other factors, such as the scenery, the apres ski, the type of skiing, all vary quite considerably.
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
saikee wrote:
It will be interesting to know the reason why as a chalet owner in Les Arcs when given the chance you didn’t choose to spend your skiing in other French resorts but to Italy, Switzerland and Austria when according to you there is no obvious difference between them.

I'm passionate about skiing not Les Arcs, it doesn't really matter where I do it. I visit other places in order to ski with friends, be taught by my usual coaches, attend BASI courses, and this season to teach.

I think that many of the conclusions you make are unsupported by the facts, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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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.
I was in paradiski last week with the family and considering that it is the most visited ski resort in the world and that it was the busiest time of the year it wasn't that crowded if you kept off the easy pistes. There is so much do-able off piste there. Its impossible to get bored with the range of runs available. The skies were blue. The views were awesome. The kids didnt miss school.
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Chris Wright, me too Very Happy
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