 Poster: A snowHead
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Well, following our big group trip to Tignes in Dec http://www.snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=1671515&highlight=tignes+minus#1671515 we needed a nice quiet week to catch up on sleep, ski some nice cruising runs and enjoy lunch all over the mountain. Some of those things happened 
So, on with the trip, which started on the Saturday night with a drive to a hotel near Gatwick, via a friend in Putney to drop of bits of cars, and finally arrived sometime around midnight to try and get some sleep before a 6am flight. Yuck. Not helped by watching the news and some American killing a load of innocent people, music going on until 1am, not a great night's sleep. But it was incredibly cheap including parking and transfers to airport, so appealed to might tightness nicely.
We hit the airport nice and early, 6am for an 8am flight, and it's a good thing we did. The queues for Monarch check-in were massive. 4 rows of 100 foot long queues just to get to a desk, and everyone was in the same boat. No idea why it was so busy, there only seemed to be half a dozen flights leaving, I guess they don't put many staff on 6am Sunday morning.
We battled our way through the queue, to meet check in staff who took our ski bags, boot bags, bits of paper etc in their stride. Strangely, the next desk over asked whether they had boots in their handlugguage, and forced them to check them in, we weren't even asked but wouldn't have been complying in a hurry. See previous trip report for the Easyjet silliness, this seems to have extended to a small percentage of Monarch staff who are arbitrarily applying their "rules". Or not, as the case may be.
Through a busy security check, and out the other side, and our flight was showing as boarding. We grabbed a quick coffee, and made our way to the gate, only to hear "Final Call..." going out for our flight! We didn't leg it, but certainly upped our pace to get to the gate. Arrived, and there were only 3 or 4 behind us getting on the plane. Phew. Within seconds of getting on the plane we realised that £15 for extra legroom seats was a necessary luxury, as if such a thing exists. We had the front of the plane to ourselves for the flight, and got some well needed sleep.
Arriving at Grenoble we were met with several familiar faces, and onto the transfer bus to Courchevel. It's not normally something I really notice or comment on, but the bus was really quite nice. I was impressed, following a series of fairly unpleasant transfer buses in recent years, this was something they had really got right. It wasn't a one-off either, the return transfer was on the same type of bus. Thumbs up from me, and goes a long way to feeling like a luxury holiday before you even arrive
A shorter transfer than we're used to and we were in resort after less than 3 hours on the bus. After a quick trip through the town we are at Chalet Mors. This is one of Olympics "normal" chalets, with Monique part of their Gold collection next door. Other than the hot tub, that their guests seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time using (suspected swingers) most of us seemed to agree there was very little they were getting that we weren't, which says a lot more about the quality of our trip than anything else.
After a quiet first night, day one was to be a nice tour of Courchevel in the fresh snow that had clearly been arranged just for us  We joined up with the ski guides to get a feel for the place, and to make sure we didn't end up in the other end of the 3 valleys at 4:30. The access to the lifts was pretty good, about 100m down the high street to the base of the lifts from 1650. Skiing home at the end of the day is much easier, there's a cut through which brings you out over the road from the chalets, but it isn't an easy run for less experienced skiiers - tight chute with no space to turn, but the walk down the high street isn't a difficult one at all.
Skis had gone in the night before to Gliss Sport, who did a good job of edge, wax and a couple of repairs for 25 euros. Not the cheapest ever, but dropped off at 5pm and picked up at 8am and the skis were in good shape the next morning.
The skiing was great - a perfect intro with a fairly fast pace down the blues and reds in Courchevel, with 3 different guides we were able to pick a group that fitted for us, and there were only 5 of us following the guide. Later in the week the group varied between 3 and 6 of us. The snow was fresh, plenty of it, and we were able to show off some of our powder skills from Tignes a couple of weeks before Thighs were burning by lunchtime, conveniently it was an easy run down to Rocky's for lunch. Ski Olympic run Rocky's Bar opposite the base for the lifts, so it made sense to drop in there for a cheap Croque and chips. Good for anyone on a budget, their pasta dish was more than I could have eaten (and I'm not a light eater) and 8 euros. Bargain. Drinks sensible price too. I, however, chose the croque, so had to live with my slightly smaller portion (oo-er) Boo.
The group standing at the top of a hill somewhere. Note how we are all clearly pros.
Helpfully you lot advised on all kinds of runs and lunch places, amongst other things, in this thread: http://www.snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=1684146&highlight=courcheval+courchevel+advice#1684146 so we had lots of raw material to work with.
After lunch we headed out to cruise around some of the blues, everyone was not quite "match fit", so some weary legs at the end of the day, but we were out until 4:30 and still loving it.
Day two was time to explore a bit more, and we had a dilemma - a few of the guys from the chalet wanted to go to St Martin de Belleville, they knew a good restaurant and the long runs down there sounded good to us. But the guiding was due to go off somewhere else. Dilemma sorted when we accosted a guide to ourselves, and took her along for a run to St Martin. She seemed to enjoy doing something a bit different to the usual routine, and the group knew where they were going - some have done Courchevel rather a lot, we were happy to follow along. I think we went from the top of 3 Marches all the way to the bottom, cruising down the long blue. Unfortunately the weather had closed in, and there was a lot of snow coming down and flat light.
We stopped off at the Bel Air for hot chocolates, great views, good service, sensible price. Don't think I'd be eating there at their normal menu prices, but we did manage a snack from their serving hatch thing later in the week.
Lunch was due to be on the terrace, but with the weather closing in it was getting colder, unfortunately they couldn't fit us inside. I think it was La Dahlia that had been recommended before we went, we went just down the steps to a decent place on the right. Again good value, their formule lunch was breaded veal and chips with salad, and cake for dessert for 15 euros. Pizza was cheap and looked good too (poor menu choice from me again, there's a theme to this through the week)
Jean Pachod (apparently, I had no clue where we are for the entire trip)
The afternoon was spent meandering back to Courchevel, via Meribel or Mottaret, I can't remember all the details on where we went, but the light had gone flat and everyone else in the entire resort seemed to be sitting it out in the bar. We, on the other hand, kept going. Because we're stubborn, but also because nobody wanted to give up on the good snow just because we couldn't see. And then a miracle happened. We headed to the top of Roc Merlet on the way home, deciding to stick to Courchevel so we wouldn't get caught in the wrong valley at tea time. We were going up the Chanrossa lift, and came out of the top of it. No cloud. No flat light. Sunshine. Glorious, crisp, sunshine. We came down a couple of runs to the central meeting of the lifts (Roc Mugnier, Gravelles and Aguilles du Fruit) and honestly I thought we might be the only survivors of a nuclear war. There was nobody. And I do mean nobody, around. We couldn't see anyone for miles. We didn't see a single other person for more than 20 minutes coming down those pistes. Eventually we saw two other people in the entire place. Utterly spectacular. Did I mention we were hammering down fresh powdered slopes? Inches of the stuff, light and fresh, and we were the first and only people to ski it. Nobody could believe it. Lesson for the day - never give up when the light goes a bit flat. It will do your technique the world of good, and as long as you don't get lost miracles just might happen.
Have a look at the powder, and it was still snowing:
Interesting observation from someone or other - apparently in 1850 there have been a lot of uber-rich Russians who have bought property, the problem for the resort being that they don't want to and don't need to rent it out to visitors. We were told that some of the powers that be in the other resorts in the 3 valleys have stopped people selling to Russians for this reason, many bars and restaurants struggling as a result of this. Whatever the reason, it was dead quiet in 1850. Noticeably so, 1650 had a fair old number of people, Meribel was packed (and seemed to be packed with beginners and snowboarders largely out of control and struggling to get down some icier pistes) and Val Thorens and Menuires fairly busy.
Day Three, and conveniently the ski guiding was headed to Reberty. I wanted to get over there to get a feel for the place, we are considering it for a group trip next December, and I like to know where things are, what lifts are nearby, what bars are close, whether there's a ski shop etc before I arrive with 20 people in tow. We headed across the entire ski area, from one end at Courchevel 1650 all the way to the Pointe de la Masse before lunchtime! We were chewing through the miles, though there were a lot of lifts to get there the snow was great and the sun shining. We hit L'Ours Blanc for lunch, which frankly blew me away. Great food, sensible prices, great views, very good staff, quick service, and a nice hotel with a big wooden Polar Bear in the front Look it up, it is worth the trip even from the other end of the area.
We had a good time skiing around the runs in Reberty and Les Menuires, it seemed like my kind of place, family friendly but good skiing and nice lifts, access to Val Thorens and the rest of the 3 valleys. Thumbs up for the December trip, and the altitude should be enough to get the kind of snow we want in the early season.
Me skiing across a photo and ruining it. I think I add a certain amount of human angle to the mahoosive mountains.
Day 4 was the staff day off, so we didn't have a ski guide any more  Not to worry, because we'd been paying plenty of attention for the last 3 days, hadn't we? Oh no, we hadn't. It seems that spending a bit more time with a piste map while we were hammering down the pistes would have been a good idea. So we got our maps out and decided to have a nice day of trying to find some visibility. Unfortunately I may or may not have stayed in bed until 10am and missed the best of the weather. It proceeded to rain, not kidding, rain throughout most of the Courchevel and Meribel valleys. We had originally set out to go to La Tania, which we did, but it didn't get much better as we went lower. The cloud was still thick in the air, the rain made it very difficult to see where we were going, and the snow was turning to slush under our skis.
We headed to Meribel to try and find better conditions, but were met with more slush and even some brown patches on the piste. Not good, still raining.
Eventually headed higher to try and get above the cloud, but it wasn't really working. The light was still flat, but at least it wasn't raining. Luckily there was just the two of us, so sticking together was easy in the conditions, we finally found sunshine at the top of the Saulire, unfortunately so had everyone else We decided to go and get lunch and see whether things improved, we went to the hatch at the side of the Bel Air, where Mrs Monium ordered the plat du jour, a steak hache sandwich and chips, while I went for the Croque with chips again, my old favourite. Another menu mistake. Her lunch was one of the biggest sandwiches I've ever seen, with salad, sauce and all sorts, and a mound of chips. My Croque was ok but left me a bit jealous. And my croque cost a lot more, about 13 euros against her 9.50.
Time for us to go and find some test skis. I wanted to try out some Dynastar Legend Sultans before making any rash decisions about buying. After asking at all the shops on the high street, the cheapest for single day rental was Gliss Sport, conveniently just opposite the chalet. After doing some thinking, I decided to try the 85s, to see if they could hold their edge on icy slopes. Mrs M borrowed some Rossignol S80s with a similar aim, and the weather was playing along nicely with us finding some icy slopes. Before anyone goes telling me that's not what they were designed for, that is exactly the point. I wanted to know if they could really do the whole mountain thing, I knew they'd be good in powder, but ice was another thing.
We joined up with the group again in the morning, and they were all set for a day of reds and hitting the slopes hard, heading to Val Thorens this time for some better conditions - apparently in VT it had been lovely the day before while we were playing in the rain! And it was icy. At first we were both like Bambi, legs everywhere, no edges, we had to work out these skis. They loved being put flat in a straight line, and at speed, very stable and comfortable, but scrubbing off speed in the turns was proving very difficult. They carved ok, but trying to keep speed in control proved difficult in the ice. On softer pistes they were fine, with a bit more work than our normal skis, but it was clear that to be able to use these skis all over the mountain a lot more technique was required. I think the 80s would be a great ski for me right now, but my Recons are 78mm so I don't feel like I'd be gaining much there.
The group was off to Meribel for lunch, but having seen it the day before and with our wider skis we decided to stay in the VT valley to do some of the softer stuff. L'Ours Blanc was the place for lunch again, only this time we sat on the terrace in glorious sunshine enjoying more good food, and lots of it.
Yep, that's right, people sitting outside in T-shirts and light jumpers, in mid-January at over 2000m. It was baking.
For the last day we had a fairly short day going back to several runs around Courchevel. We stopped for lunch at the top of the Saulire, where they've got a little hut chucking out slices of pizza and crepes. Food was ok, price ok, unfortunately I think the guy in the little hut decided that he didn't like where we'd left our skis and poles and just chucked them over the edge of the terrace. We didn't see him, but nobody had any reason to do it except him, who could have just walked round the other way, or perhaps moved them all of 2 feet away. Whoever it was, it was a bit twattish, the skis piled up on the other side weren't visible from where we'd left them, and we had a scare for a second thinking they'd been stolen. This was probably at the front of our mind, as a couple of pairs of skis were stolen from the chalethotel on the high street overnight.
We headed home early to pack, have a snooze, and give our legs a break. We did more skiing than we've ever done before in a week, covered more miles, and saw a lot more of the area than we ever would without some help.
The transfer and return flight was remarkably uneventful. The return bus was comfortable, and left promptly, with plenty of room for all the luggage and people. A first for Ski Olympic, a transfer that looked well organised.
In short, the trip went well, we'd happily go back to Courchevel, and Reberty looks like a good option for early season next year. Ski Olympic did a great job in resort, with very professional hosts and guides, good food, and we had a good laugh with the other customers in the chalet as well as the rest of the team in the resort. I would definitely recommend their chalets, and whilst there are one or two places where the decor is looking a bit dated, the location and people in the resort make up for that and more. Courchevel seems to be a place where you can not spend massive amounts of money if you don't want to, at the same time there is clearly 5* luxury on the mountain if you're a billionaire.
Some of you that bothered to read my report from Tignes probably know we had some issues with transfers on the way back, I'm now much happier with them as a company and especially the guys in the 3 valleys.
I will, when we get round to uploading them, add some photos, and possibly some video, if I can work out how. Apologies for a very dry report without the usual pics to break it up, but I'll get round to it sometime this week
Edited to add photos. See how there's not many people in them? That's what I mean.
And so to the moose.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Fri 21-01-11 21:34; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Monium, a great account of your trip, and thank you for sharing.
Agree with your comments on the thread/ link above, I have printed it out to take with me.
Five of us are going to Courchevel 1650 next Sunday, first visit for us all , mixed abilities, 2nd weeker through to expert.
Hopefully the temperatures will fall and snow will drop from the sky!
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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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Monium, what a great read, thank you.
One of my and pam w's contentions nicely proved here:
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the plat du jour, a steak hache sandwich and chips, while I went for the Croque with chips again, my old favourite. Another menu mistake. Her lunch was one of the biggest sandwiches I've ever seen, with salad, sauce and all sorts, and a mound of chips. My Croque was ok but left me a bit jealous. And my croque cost a lot more, about 13 euros against her 9.50.
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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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Monium, great report, glad it went so well. Interesting that 1850 was so quiet.
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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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Couple of things to add. Apparently the restaurant where our skis got chucked over the terrace was at the top of the Chenus, not the Saulire (see how much I knew!) and also forgot to mention Mrs Monium's mahoooooooosive steak at the L'Ours Blanc - I opted for pizza, she ended up with a lump of meat that you could have thrown to lions, plus chips and salad. Another poor menu choice for me, but the bolognese pizza was very very good.
Next time, I think I'll be asking for dish suggestions as well as just restaurants!
Also 3 valleys lift pass - 235 Euros! Ouch! OK, it's a massive ski area, but I'm not going to cover more miles just because it is 3V. At some point some common sense needs to be applied to lift passes - that was more than half the price of my flights, transfers, accommodation and chalet board food. And half the lifts were either drag or very old, fast chairs that knacker your calves as they hit. Sorry, had to whinge about something.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Monium, I had one of my best ski lunches down at a Courchevel place... past the airfield and when you see the square it's the place on the right side closest to the slopes. Half a rabbit stuffed with prunes and sauce and served over a bed of tagliatelle. The meat just fell off the bone. RachelQ will know the place as I was with the Q gang plus Stateside kids when we visited.
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Whitters, I think we tried for that one but it was closed so we had to venture a little further down the mountain. It's got a very good reputation.
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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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Photos added.
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Liked the pictures. This amused me
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We headed to Meribel to try and find better conditions, but were met with more slush and even some brown patches on the piste. Not good, still raining.
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Because when it's raining in Coucheval heading to meribel is always a great idea
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| rambotion wrote: |
Liked the pictures. This amused me
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We headed to Meribel to try and find better conditions, but were met with more slush and even some brown patches on the piste. Not good, still raining.
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Because when it's raining in Coucheval heading to meribel is always a great idea |
We decided that for some reason it might not be raining on the other side of the mountain, that turned out to be a rather bad idea.
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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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Yes, I have to say that I'd been a bit confused by the decision to head down to a lower altitude in the hope that rain would turn to snow. I've experienced quite big temperature inversions but not generally when it's precipitating.
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We were kind of hoping that the rain was rather more local than it was. It was patchy, but not quite that patchy Plus I had some weird idea that going down pistes running through the trees would somehow prevent rain from getting to us from above. It didn't.
The guys that went to VT the same day said it was brilliant up there.
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You know it makes sense.
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Monium, thanks for the report L'Ours Blanc is defo one of my favorites
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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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Poster: A snowHead
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Great trip report!
What was Mrs Monium's overall impression of the Rossi S80s?
I've just bought the S86s.
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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 are of to the Belleville valley in 2 and a bir weeks and was looking up L'Ours Blanc. What a great report this is.
Monium, how do you ski in and out of the reataurant?
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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 wrote: |
We are of to the Belleville valley in 2 and a bir weeks and was looking up L'Ours Blanc. What a great report this is.
Monium, how do you ski in and out of the reataurant? |
I can help as I have just given some directions to a friend.
The L'Ours Blanc t is situated in Reberty, which is above Les Menuires.
From the top of either the Doron or Menuires Chairs (which come out of Les Menuires), ski down the left hand side of the Menuires blue piste, keeping the Doron chair on your left. After a beginner area it becomes a normal piste and on the left hand side there are sign boards with tracks leading to restaurants. The first one is for Chalet 2000 (or something like that) go past that and and the next one is for L'Ours Blanc. Ski down the track for 100 metres to the road and the hotel/restaurant is right in front of you. Go up the metal staircase to the sundeck. And Enjoy.
The food and service is fantastic, the views over the La Masse wonderful, and the prices very reasonable by 3 Valleys standards.
Hope this helps you get there
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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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| Picadilly wrote: |
Great trip report!
What was Mrs Monium's overall impression of the Rossi S80s?
I've just bought the S86s. |
From what I could gather, she was having very similar issues to me on the Sultan 85s. Not enough edge hold for icier sections, but then they aren't designed for that anyhow.
We both seemed to work out that they really wanted to be used to either lay down big carves or straight down the fall line. Unfortunately on an icy piste it takes big balls to do that, and you accumulate speed fast. When you haven't got confidence in your edges to stop you, it takes even bigger balls.
We didn't test either ski in the powder, on the basis we knew both skis would be better than our piste skis for these kind of conditions. We wanted to see how much of a compromise they were on the piste, and they were both very clearly a big compromise against my Apache Recons and her Burnin Luvs.
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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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| Big Dave wrote: |
| Frosty the Snowman wrote: |
We are of to the Belleville valley in 2 and a bir weeks and was looking up L'Ours Blanc. What a great report this is.
Monium, how do you ski in and out of the reataurant? |
I can help as I have just given some directions to a friend.
The L'Ours Blanc t is situated in Reberty, which is above Les Menuires.
From the top of either the Doron or Menuires Chairs (which come out of Les Menuires), ski down the left hand side of the Menuires blue piste, keeping the Doron chair on your left. After a beginner area it becomes a normal piste and on the left hand side there are sign boards with tracks leading to restaurants. The first one is for Chalet 2000 (or something like that) go past that and and the next one is for L'Ours Blanc. Ski down the track for 100 metres to the road and the hotel/restaurant is right in front of you. Go up the metal staircase to the sundeck. And Enjoy.
The food and service is fantastic, the views over the La Masse wonderful, and the prices very reasonable by 3 Valleys standards.
Hope this helps you get there |
Just to add to these excellent instructions the beginners area is by the Club Med, so if you keep that on the left of you you can't go far wrong ... cracking pizzas there
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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 wrote: |
| We are of to the Belleville valley in 2 and a bir weeks |
Wish I'd known! We've just booked Peisey for the same week (but at least will have company - genepi is there at the same time
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No, no and thrice no, it's a rubbish area, full of wide beginner slopes, dead expensive, heaving with people, can't believe you've posted a TR without mentioning those important facts
| Monium wrote: |
| Also 3 valleys lift pass - 235 Euros! Ouch! OK, it's a massive ski area, |
I went to La Tania 6 years on the trot with the kids, we eventually just got the Courchevel passes, when you add in some of the rubbish off piste where you have to walk out of, there was no need to get a 3V pass IMHO....
So in summary, other folk stay away it's expensive, rubbish snow and crowded, right
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| Monium wrote: |
| . Not enough edge hold for icier sections, but then they aren't designed for that anyhow.. |
spyderjons favoured 3 degree edge angle would probably make a HUUGE difference here....
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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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FAQ
