Serre Chevalier - March 2012

Well, starting at the beginning .........

A week in Serre Chevalier with my non-skiing wife. Carefully researched and checked out but primarily all the blame clearly lies with TonyH. :thumbup:

Two weeks before the trip my wife put her back out, quite serious restriction in movement and a fair degree of pain. One week before the trip I twisted my knee (digging the potato bed to get the seed potatoes in as they weren't going to wait). Three days before the trip – all pretty iffy; to cancel or not? :cry:

Wife getting much, much better and I could work out on a treader with a brace on my knee without pain. Anyway we left for the airport ......
Staying in the Raddison Blu at Stansted overnight with valet parking, good deal, early night, comfy bed .....
Fire alarm at 3.30am !!! Kept going on and on, quick dress, grabbed my hand luggage, left room, left hotel via fire escape. Returned 20 mins later – false alarm; bloody drunk had set two alarms off in a corridor! :evil:

Anyway, not worth going back to bed so slow start and depart, pretty much first in queue at check in, blah di blah (if anyone really wants a detailed report of check in, security, breakfast, shopping and flight boarding etc please PM me – I WILL respond :twisted: !!).

Arrived at Turin 10mins early, left terminal 2hrs later! Ludicrous queue at passport control and then the baggage gubbins broke down. Got to coach – "we will be leaving as soon as the Manchester flight arrives .........."

Trip booked via Crystal - I've used Crystal many times and, unlike others, I have found their travel, transfers, practicalities and resort rep jolly good on the whole - this trip was no exception.

Anyway, quite a pretty run to resort via Montgenevre (what a mess of a resort at road level) and into hotel. Hotel Plein Sud, Chantemerle. Room fine, actually comfier and better equipped than expecting, just over road from lifts etc – 5 mins downhill. Decent 3 star hotel with lovely warm pool, tasty but plain food and quite lovely staff (and a dog called Harvey). :mrgreen:

Wander into centre, skis to get etc. Regis Sports, the local SkiSet shop was right in the centre – really impressed with them. Good natter with the guy, gave me a pair of Nordica Fire Arrow 80 – I was a little sceptical (probably the rather lurid green graphics actually) he said take them, I did, good ski, stable, responsive, excellent hold on ice and hard pack – until I broke them that is and then they were rubbish. Best thing for me was that they had a great boot/ski room and I could wander down in the morning in shoes to pick up skis/boots.
Found The Station bar as well. English run place down by the piste; had to go several times as Vin Chaud was 1E, and OH became addicted ........ :roll:

During the week we both found Chantemerle a delightful little place, very friendly, nice ambiance, few Brits, just perfect. Went to the cinema one night – saw The Artist; perfect film to see in French !! Some nice fireworks and torchlight descent one night; we watched this from our balcony. The view from the balcony was pretty good as below. This is the Luc Alphond piste – a black that ranged from tame to terrible depending on conditions (more of that later).
More to follow in due course ............

Aha, the famous Luc Alphond. I know exactly what you mean. I skied it one morning, no one on it, glorious soft pisted run, hared down it pulling roosters all the way. Did it 4 hours later and it ranged from heavy moguls to sheet ice. Horrendous.

Sounds great so far. Look forward to part 2 :D

PM on the way ;)

Iceman wrote:Sounds great so far. Look forward to part 2 :D

PM on the way ;)

You'd hate it there Icy

Tony_H wrote:You'd hate it there Icy

The airport? Yes, I imagine you are correct....read the post ;)

One good nights sleep later and out down the hill at 8.30am.

Wife watered etc.

Wandered onto the bubble just after it had opened and just before the ski school gang left the base – top tip for Chantemerle; 9.00 to 9.05 no queues, then busy for 10 to 15 mins then no queues.

Went over from Serre Ratier to the Grande Alpes area and then found the two delightful reds under the Aiguillette chair. I skied both of these a couple of times, and the conditions were the best of the week. There had been a few cm's of fresh overnight and these runs were superb. Thanks Tony for telling me about these two hidden gems. All week they were quiet, although got pretty hard and icy and being very north facing rarely softened up. :thumbup:

Had a mid morning coffee at Serre Ratier (the big self service place, excellent coffee, 1E before noon, clean and spacious loos and the food was reasonable as well) and played on the runs immediately above here – the red Draye and the black Pylones. I really enjoyed these two runs all week, very convenient, remaining pretty quiet and easy for joining OH at the restaurant.

I went down the Luc Alphond mid-morning ish and it was really pleasant and fun; a good cruisy black at the top with a steeper flourish into town. Snow was in good condition, well pisted and quite giving.

The weather this first day was cold, cloudy and windy but I was just happy to be on skis and that my knee was holding up. With this in mind I called it a day early pm and finished down the Luc Alphond – what a difference a few hours made – virtually sheet ice and a real bu**er. The wind had blown any free snow into Italy; I did not enjoy this run. Later in the afternoon I noticed from the hotel that they had closed the run, good call in my view. During the week I saw a good few long slides after falls but didn't see anyone taken off in a blood wagon.

Anyway ...
First day over, very happy with skis and that my knee was tired but holding up well.

During the week we had freezing cold, wind, calm, sun, cloud, snow (but not enough to make a difference to the skiing, only remove visibility) and conditions on piste to match from rock hard to slush.

I skied down to all the four villages, Monetier, Villeneuve and Briancon as well as Chantemerle where I was based. Pretty much all the areas were covered (but not quite all runs/lifts). I got lost, went the wrong way, ended up in places totally unplanned but had a great time.

What I enjoyed the most about Serre Chevalier was the trees, skiing down pistes surrounded by trees, lovely.

And, of course I skied Cucumelle. I found this a very enjoyable run but IMHO not really a classic. This video is the whole lot from the Vallons chair at the top to the Frejus chair at the bottom. 8 minutes or so – apologies for length but just decided to put the whole thing on rather than edit it down.

On with my thoughts about Serre Chevalier.

I had a really lovely week's holiday, despite a dodgy knee and a broken ski and some interesting weather and piste conditions. And I would go back, primarily because my wife really liked the place. She explored Briancon and the old town (not worth missing a half days skiing for – her view), walked the valley from Villeneuve to Chantemerle, explored the river walks and enjoyed coming up the hill. Particularly the two stage Prorel bubble out of Briancon.

This place is truly north facing and remarkably snow sure, after those two weeks of "heatwave" at the end of February there was still virtually complete snow cover from top to bottom. The conditions above the first lifts out of all stations were pretty good.

I must admit, though, I was getting a bit bored by the end of the week. I didn't feel there was that much variety in pistes, it was all a bit "samey". I tried a couple of little trips between pistes but the conditions were just not right – solid ice moguls best describes these bits.

I would really like the chance to come back to this place when the snow is good, fresh, soft .....

So much easily accessible off-piste and between piste skiing around it would have been an absolute delight if this had been skiable (saw virtually no-one on anything but groomed piste all week).

I found only one real bottleneck and that was on the return from the Monetier end back to Chantemerle. The Frejus chair and then a drag lift is the only link I could see to get back. This is a real pity. It took me an hour to get from the bottom of Cucumelle to Serre Ratier the first time I tried – mainly because of the huge queue at the drag lift by the Frejus restaurant.

For others ....

The nursery slopes all seemed really well planned, both those down at resort level and higher up at Serre Ratier and above Briancon. The Grande Alpe area would be a delight for improvers to get stuck into really wide, delightful blues, with a few twiddly bits around for a bit of a challenge.

But ...

I saw an awful lot of novice skiers struggling on some of the vital link runs to get from A to B. For example from Grande Alpe back to Serre Ratier is the blue Vallons; absolute carnage when ski school was coming off the higher slopes at lunchtime – and I mean carnage!! This view was backed up by comments in the hotel from some novice skiers and it is a real pity, for them and the resort.

I do think the real winners in Serre Chevalier would be the confident intermediate who likes the miles, a bit of a challenge now and then and a sense of really getting around a decent sized area.

Mind you ........

With a couple of foot of fresh snow .......

A paradise
:thumbup:

Thanks very much OldAndy. I enjoyed reading that :D

It's a pity the snow wasn't better so you could have gone off-piste, but on the other hand it sounds as though the snow on most of the pistes was okay.

And I'm glad your knee lasted through :D

It was lucky you'd paid extra for the insurance on the skis. I wonder how your ski broke?

Ally