After some heavy snow fall in September the Alps hasn’t seen much since. This has made several ski resorts delay their opening dates. The following resorts have been affected:
It doesn’t look like there is a lot of snow coming in the next few weeks, therefore if you intend skiing in December we suggest booking in a high resort like Tignes, Zermatt and Val Thorens.
ABS Airbag have released a recall for all bags with steel gas cartridges
between with dates between 1 September 2008 and 15 April 2010. These are for the ABS Twinbag and they need to be replaced. We recommend checking the date on your gas and if the date is between these dates take it to your local retailer for replacement.
The 21st annual Trophée Andros will once again start the season of ice driving at the highest ski resort in Europe, Val Thorens. This is a great opportunity to get up close and personal with your heroes including Alain Prost, Olivier Panis to name a couple. If you are not sure what the Trophée Andros is we have a video of last years event below. This year the race will be on 2nd to 4th December 2011. It’s free to watch but wrap up warm as it gets very cold!
You can buy tickets for entry to the pitlane, prices are:
18€ for 1 day
30€ for 2 days
To buy tickets you will need to go to the side of the foot bridge.
There is a free bus from the car parking of P0, P1 and P2. Information on Parking in Val Thorens.
The new lifts in Val Thorens are coming along nicely, looks like they will be ready for when Val Thorens season starts.
As you can see by these photos you will now be able to ski down to Orelle from the top of these lifts by Boucher or Genepi as well as the two new pistes. The new area resembles the Plain Sud ski area with big rollers, it is looking like a great addition to the ski area with several off-piste routes expected.
Val Thorens new lift system
Val Thorens: Terminal Area
Val Thorens New lift: length
Val Thorens new lift pilons
Val Thorens: This shows how far from resort
Top two American ski resorts decide to link up their ski passes to offer a better selection to the visitors.
Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadow from Lake Tahoe have merged the ownership of the ski area. They will now offer ski passes to cover both ski resorts.
A new Tahoe Super Pass will start from $439 (Adults) for 6 days or $799 for a season pass.
You can buy these passes right away from the Squaw Valley website.
Meribel have released a new promo video for this season (2011/2012) showing off all their facilities. Nice to get you in the mood!
Why not see this view for yourself! Courchevel apartments for rent.
On the 17th and 18th of December Courchevel will hosted the FIS Ladies Alpine Ski World Cup including the giant slalom on the Saturday and a Slalom on the Sunday. Tens of thousands are expected to watch the competition and cheer on the local stars. Entries included: Lindsey Vonn, Maria Riesch, Marlies Schild and Tanja Poutiainen as well as Courchevel Sports Club’s Taïna Barioz and Anne-Sophie Barthet.
As like last year we are sure this will be a big hit.
Why not come and watch! Courchevel Apartments for rent.
This season Meribel has invested lots of money in new snow canons. With 13 additional snow machines having been installed on the Murettes slope which provides the second point of access to La Praz with guaranteed snow.
The 3 Valleys has now got 2,100 snow canons and like all the others the new canons will run on renewable energy.
80% of the water used in these canons are from the reservoirs located through-out the 3 valleys. The reservoirs collect the melted snow and rain from the summer.
Back in 1994 Val Thorens became the location for one of the Tour de France end of stages. It was stage 17 which saw the cyclists climb the very challenging steep hair-pined road up to the highest ski resort in Europe. As you can see in this video the mist comes in which can change the temperature quite dramatically. Because of the altitude the cyclists couldn’t sleep in Val Thorens but instead stayed lower down in St Martin de Belleville for the night and took a car back up to Val Thorens for the decent the following day. Val Thorens has not since hosted the Tour de France which we think is mainly due to the road, over the years of hard weather and 6 months coaches driving up and down the road it has got quite bumpy. They re-tarmac the road most years but it seems it is a quick fix. There is talk that they will host the Tour de France again, but, it is only talk at the moment. If you would like to see these super-fit guys climb up to Val Thorens we have added this video to this page.
Val Thorens host Tour de France.
Val Thorens is very luck as the ski lift company SETAM is based there. SETAM have pioneered the Funitel system and Val Thorens had the first for them to show off. Being so high Val Thorens can get quite windy and sitting on a chair lift in the wind is no fun at all, especially if it’s -10 degrees and snowing.
Already Val Thorens has 3 Funitels installed and they do a fantastic job. For their 40th anniversary they are not stopping there. This season (2011/12) they are opening their 4th funitel. This will carry skiers and snowboards up from the top of Portette lift into a brand new ski area. This will in turn create more pistes, in fact it will create 2 new pistes!
There will be a red run called ‘Asters’ (an aster is a type of flower) and a blue run called ‘Chocard’ (which is named after the most common type of crow seen in Val Thorens, also known as a ‘choucas’)which should make the decent from the top (3000m) all the way down to the bottom of the resort in one go one hell of a run!
The new lift will 33 people per train which adds up to 1500 per per hour, so no slouch!
We have the brand new pistes maps for the new season:
Val Thorens Piste Map 2011/2012
Meribel is located in the centre valley of the 3 Valleys and therefore a vital place to ski in and ski through to get to other ski resorts in the area. For years some of the lifts in the valley have seen better days. Well things are changing…
Meribel have finally decided to upgrade some of their lifts, in the summer of 2011 they started work on building a new Saulire Express lift. This replaces the ageing two station lift.