 Poster: A snowHead
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Well according to Thomson that's the case.
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Level of Difficulty:
beginner 54%
intermediate 30%
advanced 16% |
Yes OK - being a saddo, I have been poring over brochures & websites in the hope that it will make the skiing holidays come sooner  .
Doesn't this come close to falling foul of "False & Misleading advertising" legislation? I know what they're doing is quoting all blues as beginner pistes, but it hardly gives an accurate impression to someone setting out on their first ever skiing experience.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Butterfly, To be fair there are huge swathes of dead easy pistes in Val d'Isere. Most of it is at a good elevation so the snow is good.
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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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So that 'Face' thing I was forced down was the 16% then 
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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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Boredsurfing, yes, That and the 'Epaule du Charvet' thing that some idiot forced me down. So annoying when a piste basher driver is off sick all season and nobody looks after his piste
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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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Butterfly,
I don't think Val D'Isere is particularly suited toi beginners because it is ridiculously expensive and the runs back to the resort aren't the easiest but to be fair it has as FtS says masses of dead easy pistes even if not all the ones marked green and blue are accurately labelled.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Frosty the Snowman, "easy" is a relative term!
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Butterfly, but 'dead easy' isn't.
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| Butterfly wrote: |
Doesn't this come close to falling foul of "False & Misleading advertising" legislation? I know what they're doing is quoting all blues as beginner pistes, but it hardly gives an accurate impression to someone setting out on their first ever skiing experience. |
It is normal practice for Blues/Greens to be described by resorts as "Easy", reds to be described as "Medium", and blacks as "Advanced". Changing the wording to "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Expert" isn't really misleading IMO.
What tends to be more misleading is the practice many resorts have of labelling the least difficult "resort run" as a blue, even when it really should be a red. Just so that there always appears to be a way for beginners to ski down at the end of the day.
I've never been to Val D'Isere, but reports I have seen of one blue run strewn with fallen skiers at the end of the day suggest this might be the case there.
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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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| alex_heney wrote: |
| one blue run strewn with fallen skiers at the end of the day |
That sounds like the 'Icy Wall of Death' into Les Coches although its reputation is a greatly exaggerated and there is a longer, gentler way down.
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| alex_heney wrote: |
| I've never been to Val D'Isere, but reports I have seen of one blue run strewn with fallen skiers at the end of the day suggest this might be the case there. |
that could describe pretty much any of the home runs at Val d'Isere at the end of the day. If you want to ski down to the valley, Le Fornet is the place to do it IMO even if you do need to take the bus home afterwards
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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the chairs and gondola's down should be labeled as the green return route home!
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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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alex_heney, one of the runs strewn with bodies, often quite icy and bumpy at the end of a busy day, is actually green. However, I agree that Val D'Isere is perfectly suitable for beginners (though there are many, many, which are better) and, after all, there are loads of resorts where everybody takes a lift down at the end of the day. It's just that in Val D'Isere lots of people who shouldn't be doing it will insist on skiing down. "Le Face" is often strewn with bodies too - and with people going very slowly. I've seen them from the gondola. 
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Frosty the Snowman, 'Epaule de Charvet'!!! I think I left half my butt on that piste in 2000. Is it still there? 
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You know it makes sense.
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queen bodecia, the piste definitley is, can't say I've noticed a spare buttock though.
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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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That green run into La Daille is really long.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Cue the discussions regarding "Verte" 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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There are some resorts which are more suited to beginners, and some which are distinctly less well suited, yet there seems to be a reluctance to say so in advertising material. I am have been (and I still am) a nervous novice and I am not the only one. If I didn't have you guys here to advise me on suitability of resorts, I could have unwittingly made a bad choice had I relied upon descriptions like the above. Take Wengen - a number of SHs told me they thought the skiing I could tackle would be limited - yet 1/3rd of its slopes are listed as "beginner pistes".
I accept that blues are easier than reds which are easier than blacks and that a blue in resort A is a red in B and a green in C. I don't however think that "beginner" is the right word to routinely associate with blue as beginners are those with little or no knowledge & experience. If all blues are deemed "beginner slopes", no wonder the bolder novice heads off down any run labelled "blue" to get back home - why wouldn't they? How could they know there are reds & blacks masquerading as blues?
I read these quote in travel blogs from V d'I
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I decided to descend via what looked like a gentle blue run, called Santons, while the others chose the mogul-filled black run Charvet.
After approximately two minutes I realised why they hadn’t wanted to do Santons. Not because it was too easy – quite the opposite. Shaped like a long, narrow bowel (sic!), the run is the hardest blue I’ve ever come across, |
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| Les Santons in Val d'Isere is a prime example. It is the only blue rated piste down to the village from the top of the Bellevarde summit and during rush hour this long narrow gully has the greatest number of overwhelmed bodies on the mountain. For intermediate skiers, the difficulties experienced are equivalent to crossing the Bronx at midnight with a suitcase full of dollars. |
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Butterfly, Santons is shoite. Dull, boring, crowded and a run in which one is encouraged to loop from side to side accroos the gun-barrell. I would rather play on the M25 than tackle Santons at 4.15 in mid February.
That said, the journey back inrto Val d@isere via the Olympique gondola is quick, pituresque and you get a great view of multiple Boredsurfings falling down "Face"
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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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no wonder the bolder novice heads off down any run labelled "blue" to get back home - why wouldn't they?
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indeed but "Le Face" is black. It's not just the "beginner" label which can be misleading. You never get a TO resort description telling you that it's no good for experts. They'll say something like "The famous Cuberotte run will give even the experts a run for their money" even if it's the only difficult run in the resort.
But there are masses of resources on the internet to find out more - it's not difficult, even for those not fortunate enough to have discovered the bottomless fund of expert advice available on SHs. Anyone who goes to Val D'Isere and doesn't do enough asking around to discover that there's no easy way down probably doesn't care. Plenty of very poor skiers seem perfectly happy to hobble down runs far too difficult for them, though it's not my idea of fun.
One of the most important questions about a resort, for many people, is whether there is a wide choice of runs to progress gradually from the nursery slopes and plenty of interesting ways of covering the ground without scaring yourself to death, rather than doing the same runs over and over. Les Saisies (and this whole area) is ideal from that point of view - but only a tour operator would claim it was a good choice for people looking for challenge on-piste.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Butterfly wrote: |
If all blues are deemed "beginner slopes", no wonder the bolder novice heads off down any run labelled "blue" to get back home - why wouldn't they? How could they know there are reds & blacks masquerading as blues?
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Very true. And even worse in European countries other than France & Spain (including Andorra), where "Blue" actually covers everything which is either Green or Blue in those countries.
So even within a resort, if you don't know it, you have no way of telling whether a given "blue" is nursery slope level or almost a red.
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I actually cried on Santons and the following year chose to use the black next to it instead. That said, when I did summon up the courage to go down it and it actually had snow on it and was virtually deserted, it was quite fun!
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| pam w wrote: |
| "Le Face" is often strewn with bodies too |
the advantage is that it is usually steep and icy enough that the bodies accumulate back in Val dÍsere.
There are lots of good reasons for a beginner to go to VDI but skiing wouldn't be one of them.
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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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Mr.Si, I only said it's long.
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I think there's a nice green area up above Val d'Isere, but "verte" is harder than some of the reds on the Tignes side. Didn't mind it, but then I wasn't doing it a peak time as I wasn't staying in Val. The worst thing I remember about Santons is that it ends in a tedious flat section which is hard work when you've got a sore leg and a ski school group to keep up with. The snow on it was different (more of it and possibly grippier) and being not used to it I mananged to catch an edge and go flying into a heap (hence sore leg from stiff back that needed a stretch), but it didn't strike me as too horrendous a piste. Most of the reds down were nicer (apart from one with monster moguls). Didn't do Face (still quite selective about black pistes) but my OH's sister did quite a lot of it head first. Face was better than the black at the Fornet end (which apparently had car sized icy moguls that week...). I think for beginners I would suggest that Tignes is better than Val as it has some nice blues and bluey reds back to most of the resort (ignoring the side that only has Trolles or a horrible cat track to avoid the steep bit). I preferred the steep bit - such fun - as steep and wide is much easier than shallow and narrow! Wish the instructor had done it on the first day rather than evil cat track, but some others in the group had issues with the piste poles being black! One of the people with us (admittedly super fit and fearless) happily went down from the top of the glacier back to Val Claret at the end of his first week skiing.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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the advantage is that it is usually steep and icy enough that the bodies accumulate back in Val dÍsere
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my son spent a season in Val D'Isere - and serving breakfast was definitely not his favourite part of the day. He said once or twice, when walking up to the chalet in the evil morning light, when there had been a fresh dump of snow on Le Face overnight, it had taken a real effort of will to keep walking, rather than run back for his skis/snowboard.
He loved Val D'Isere - he freelanced as a chef (as we call them in English, but not, I gather, in French ) and cooked lunches for French shop owners, dinners for Parisian bankers and fed rich Portuguese port families for a week. He bargained for lobsters in the Cash 'n Carry and shared a very, very, small apartment with an English ski instructor.
I've not spent enough time there to get to know it, really, just a few days, and it's far from my favourite place.
And as for the Brits who call it "Val"......... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
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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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And as for the Brits who call it "Val"......... Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
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Not to mention 'Cham', 'Courch' (which really makes me cringe) and most recently 'Dizzle' - step forward BertieBassett - which is just F*ing stupid.
Note to all: randomly abbreviating the names of places you have visited makes you look like a total dick, not a local. Please get a life.
*takes deep breath, returns to lotus position*
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Note to all: randomly abbreviating the names of places you have visited makes you look like a total dick, not a local. Please get a life.
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Thanks for that.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Mr.Si wrote: |
| Cue the discussions regarding "Verte" |
When I started reading this thread that is the first run that came to mind.
Without repeating what has been said before, for me Verte by mid afternoon is more of a challenge then Le Face especialy if the light is flat !!!!
Bodies everywhere
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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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Lizzard, Cham has to be shortened as even the locals can't decide on the ending 
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Poster: A snowHead
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Perhaps the off piste is so popular in Val d'Isere because so much of the piste there is graded for beginners. Maybe the same is true of the other off piste paradises.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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Frosty the Snowman, fs, Ahhh Santons apart from the avalanche risk when it has snowed iit's all the people. Half pipes aren't really designed for lots of people going down them at the same time but at different speeds. Actually managed to "mislay" a child there because it was so busy I didin't spot they had stopped on 1 side of the wall. I kept my speed up for the long schuss out and then had to walk back. How I laughed! 
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FAQ
