 Poster: A snowHead
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Dates: 6-9 Feb 2013
Travel:
We flew to Geneva, and bought a return transfer from Altibus. It wasn't
obvious beforehand, but the tickets come in two parts: one for the first
leg, from Geneva to Moutiers, and one for the second leg, from Moutiers
to Pralognan. The first leg was in a coach, the second was in a shared
taxi (we dropped some Russians off at Brides-Les-Bains on the way but
after that it was just us). This was on a Wednesday night, but I imagine
they put on a larger bus if there's bigger demand.
The return journey needs to be confirmed at the tourist office 48 hours
before you leave. We went on to La Tania for the week after, but the
tourist office in La Tania were perfectly happy to change our return
ticket from Pralognan since it was the same price to return from La Tania.
We got a taxi from Pralognan to La Tania after the day's skiing on
Saturday and that cost us €75.
The village:
Pralognan is compact and picturesque. It looks especially pretty after
new snow because the local council don't use salt or chemicals to
completely clear the roads, they just use a snowplough. On the flipside,
this means you absolutely must be prepared to drive on steep snowy roads
with snow chains if you're going to self-drive. On the night when we
arrived it was chucking it down with snow all the way from Geneva to
Pralognan, and I was extremely glad we hadn't hired a car since I don't
have that much experience driving in snow.
There's only really one main street in town, with maybe a hundred yards
of shops, bars and restaurants. There's a good choice of sport shops,
one of which (Twinner) waxed and edged our skis overnight for €18 per
pair. Neither of us is a ski-servicing geek, but they were very helpful
and I certainly had no complaints. We found one supermarket and one cash
machine.
There's one main uplift point from the center of the village, where you
can get either a cable car, a slow chair or the button lift up the
nursery slope. There's also a separate drag for the slalom racing
slopes, which we never bothered going over to. It's not a great deal of
use since you can't use it to ski over to any other uplifts, so don't
bother specifically trying to find accommodation next to that lift.
This is possibly a bit bleedin' obvious, but... Pralognan is French.
Really French to the point where you genuinely would struggle to get
stuff done if you couldn't drag a bit of high school French out of
hiding. That said, armed with my own schoolboy French, we got everything
done that we needed and the service (and people in general) were
extremely pleasant.
Our accommodation:
We stayed at Hotel L'Edelweiss, which is about 50 metres away from the main lift station. I recommend it highly. The couple running the hotel are really lovely and between them both they have a reasonable amount of English. There's a decent restaurant and bar in the hotel. Rooms were comfortable and clean with lots of storage space. The bootroom had labelled racks for each room's skis, each with a padlock.. Only minor drawback was the tempramental shower temperature.
Other Food and Drink:
Outside of the hotel, we visited a lovely restaurant called Le Regal Savoyard. Deciphering the menu took a little while but I had a duo of
veal head and ox tongue and OH had a Farcon (a big dumpling with prunes and bacon). Don't think I've ever had a more French meal.
There are a couple of nice bars along the main street too, but can't remember the names. The one that the ski instructors drink in was fairly obvious.
The mountain restaurants were reliably lovely, with the one exception that we found them a little busy on the day when the visibility was good, since there were loads more people on the mountain. I had a particularly nice horseburger at the restaurant near the top of the Genepi lift 
The mountain:
It's not miniscule, but it is quite small. Even for me, someone who doesn't care much about lots of mileage, it seemed about right for the 3
days we spent there. A week here is never going to be worthwhile for a reasonable mileage-hungry intermediate. Similarly, it's quite a
significant airport transfer to do just for a day or two, so those two things probably explain its overwhelming Frenchness.
Slopes were fairly quiet and very well groomed, except before they had touched the lovely fresh snow on the top slopes early in the morning. Piste grading seemed consistent, although there was not much difference between blues and some reds. Favourite blue was Marmottes, although the ones at the top of the Ancolie lift were also very nice. The green of the Campanules drag is a good practice spot and the Flottes is an easy long green, but boarders would probably hate the flat parts. Combe des bieux is a great red, wide and fairly consistent most of the way. We didn't like the Torches red, which had a steep track section. The slopes at the sides of the map were closed for most of the time, due to avalanche risk. This didn't bother us since there was plenty of fantastic fresh powder to play with, both on and off piste elsewhere.
We didn't try it but, right next to the village there was an extensive flat part of the valley set aside for cross-country skiing.
Verdict:
Pralognan is small and picturesque, and worth 2 days, maybe 3 if you happen to be in the area. We went there as a 3-day prelude to a week in the 3 valleys, and it worked perfectly for us.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Thank you for this.. I keep meaning to pop around to Pralognan for a day.. maybe I'll do it next week.
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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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ap96, v useful report, thanks. My season pass gives me a day there, and I've been meaning to go for several years now!!
Another SH who knows it well told me there was some good off-piste too and touring too, though I'm largely a piste skier.
"My" area is also very French and it's no use barging in assuming everyone speaks English. I find people invariably courteous at least and mostly positively friendly and helpful. I now speak a lot more French, which helps enormously as I can have a conversation beyond the essentials, sort out plumbing and electrical problems, etc. My French isn't great but almost always better than my interlocutor's English. So whoever I am interacting with is "in charge" of the transaction and it is I who am struggling to cope. So often British tourists stride in, start speaking English without even asking if their interlocutor speaks English and/or apologizing for lack of French. And when people do speak good tourist English it remains the visitor who is "in charge" with the receptionist, shop assistant, ski instructor, etc on the back foot, linguistically. I do really cringe sometimes hearing people march into a bar or restaurant and launching into English with no preliminaries - sometimes not even a "bonjour". That's why we are so often seen as arrogant. Is it surprising that they sometimes get a bit of French "attitude" in return?
The snowy roads sound familiar too - the use of salt has been cut down a lot, I think and it amuses me when people write that "the roads are cleared quickly after snow". The roads, even little local ones, will certainly be ploughed several times during snowy days but the snow builds up in between plough runs AND a road which has been ploughed isn't black, it remains white, and can be very white and icy for days afterwards.
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Nice report, I had never really thought of Pralognan as a winter sports destination more as a summer mountaineering centre (one of the best IMHO) but I have always thought of going there for a day or two to sample the skiing. The scenery must be staggering. It is during the summer.
Do they still run the market at the top of the main street during the winter?
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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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pam w, my pleasure, I hope you like the skiing when you do manage to get over to Pralognan. Completely agree about speaking French. I did have to resort to English a few times, but not before a cheery "Bonjour! Est-ce que vouz parlez Anglais?" and never without at least a "merci beaucoup" to finish. It sounds too obvious to be worth mentioning, but it really does seem to help.
johnE, the scenery was picture perfect on the 1 day out of 3 that the visibility was good! But as ever, I love poor visibility if it means there's fresh white stuff underfoot I never saw a market, but then I wasn't looking for one!
SnowRetreat, we went on to stay in one of your chalets in La Tania... I should probably put in a good word for you and your colleagues while I remember! Except for an injury to one of our party, it was a fantastic week, and the chalet staff were great. I didn't bother with a full trip report though since La Tania seems pretty well covered elsewhere on Snowheads.
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Nice report.
I've only ever skied one full day there but we've used it twice as a portal to the Vanoise. All the sports shops have touring gear in the window and I reckon at least 25% of the instructors are on Dynafiddle bindings.
It's certainly picturesque and I'm glad you managed to see it on at least one day.
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Nice review, I lived in Pralo towards the end of one winter and throughout the following summer and even as a 'resident' am in agreement with your appraisal. It's not the most charming village but the terrain is certainly picturesque; they like to call it the "little Chamonix" and the jutting mountains certainly are a contrast to the rolling valleys of the neighbouring Meribel/Courchevel.
For those thinking visiting however, you can ski the entire pisted area in an afternoon and it's quite low so fairly rubbish if it's warm so it might not be worth missing a day in a larger area. The local businesses also observe lunch service so religiously that it's impossible to get anything to eat if it's before 12:00 and after 14:00, so plan carefully!
The ski touring potential is huge though, and it's common to see people drop in from Courchevel towards the national parc (in the other direction from the big telecabine). There are also lots of nordic skiing tracks.
I preferred the place as a non-skier in fact, walking towards the national park is quite a treat but take snowshoes as even in March we got caught out some deep snow. There's a delightful refuge/restaurant/auberge a few miles along the way (follow the encouraging signs posted every few hundred metres!) which does great blueberry tart as a reward for getting there. 
One last proviso; when it snows a lot or the rivers burst the road to Pralo gets shut. This happened once in the winter and once in the summer when I lived there so not exactly common, but as there's only one road if you're going for the day chuck an overnight bag in the car just in case...
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