Now to the important part: skiing.
Les Deux Alpes is a high resort, with the part of the village I was staying in being at about 2,000m in altitude, or nearly 7,000 feet, most of the village is lower down. The top is higher than I thought at 3,600m making it higher than Val Thorens at 3,300m, and as such pushing it to nearly 12,000 ft.
Snow depth reported by online ski sites was saying about 3m of snow at the top and a metre at village level. The big issue was temperature. At village level daytime temperatures were generally above zero – around 3C to 5C, which is a slow thaw. It means that snow low down is subject to freeze/thaw conditions which is not nice – basically it turns everything to ice.
Once you got above the freezing level – which was around 2,400m – the snow was decent. The other issue was that there had been a big dump of snow about ten days before I arrived but nothing new since. This wasn't an issue higher up, but it was an issue lower down and it put the green track to the hotel out of use for example.
I have not been to Les Deux Alpes before. It's typical of a large French resort in the northern Alps. It's above the treeline, so you don't get that much in the way of trees or opportunity to ski through tracks in woodland, which you do get in the southern Alps, and in Austria and Italy.
The route for me to get up to the top took nearly an hour. There was a chair just next to the hotel, which I had to take to get up. From there it was a short ski down to another chair. At the top of that one, it was another ski across to another chair. This then brought you to a large telécabine which took about a dozen people per pod. This was the Jandri Express, which is in two separate sections. My route brought me to the bottom of JE II i.e. the upper section. Unfortunately, you have everyone from the lower JE I arriving and walking round to get the upper section. This made for a very busy interchange, and it was a minimum of 10 minutes of queuing to get aboard.
Big queues at lift and chairs used to be the bane of skiing in France. The development of faster chairs and lifts using derailleurs to separate the cabin or chair from the main cables has improved matters significantly.
I think the reason it was more of an issue here than I expected was the relatively poor conditions lower down: this was forcing more people higher up the mountain.
Once at the top of the lift, you have two options for getting higher. There is a double drag lift near the top of JE II. It's of the dreaded T-bar type. I thought these were extinct in France as I've not seen one for well over ten years. You do still get Poma button lifts, usually to access far-flung outer edges of a resort, but most T-bars have been replaced by chair lifts.
T-bars are a nuisance as they're meant to be 'shared' with one person either side. This is a pain if the other person's height is significantly more or less than yours. Fortunately, I was able to use it on my own and not share it.
At the top of the drag lift, you are at around 3,400m (about 11,000 ft) and there is a viewpoint area with great views. To get to the highest point involves getting to another drag lift. That is not easy as it is somewhat uphill and a good 300m or more away. This means 'poling', 'skating', or taking skis off and walking. I'm surprised they haven't put a ski tow in to deal with that. It's bad enough for skiers, but an utter nightmare for boarders.
The views from the very top are worthwhile.
Some of the best skiing is from those two upper lifts. These are big cruisy runs and very enjoyable in bright sunshine.
As is often the case when you get something akin to 'spring' snow conditions, skiing lower down can be challenging. The snow goes through freeze/thaw and turns to 'sugar'. As the day progresses, this starts to behave like a viscous fluid – think something like syrup. It's 'sticky' since it's wet and adds a lot of drag to the skis. It takes much more energy input to the skis to effect a turn. It is easy to try to make a turn and for your skis to ignore that and go straight on. This throws you off balance and you can end up falling and injuring yourself as you go one way and your skis another, something I have done in the past.
After skiing down to the main village at 1800m one afternoon I decided I wasn't going to do that again. For the rest of the week when going back to base, I picked up one of the telécabines and took them to the bottom and got the bus back to the hotel.
The skiing on the upper slopes was good, but the warm temperatures and lack of recent snow limited what I felt comfortable doing and I wasn't able to get fully around the resort.
It'll be worth another trip to see more.
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