Skiing without chair lifts?

Howdy all.

An odd one this, and possibly impossible. We have a member in our party who is terrified of chair lifts. She's well aware that it's an irrational fear, but as such it's impossible to "fix" with logic. Having survived chairlift rides in the past I'd hoped the fear would diminish, but this has not been the case. Every ride is just as terrifying as the first. :cry:

Now a holiday is meant to be fun so what to do? She's OK in gondolas (just) and fine on drag lifts. However in my limited experience gondolas tend to only get you half way up the mountain. Drag lift queues drive me nuts and tend not to go where the nicest skiing is...

So are there any resorts that have great skiing straight from a gondola without the need for a chair to get up the next leg? Her experience is beginner / early intermediate but confidence is growing.

Cheers,

Owen.

Have a look at Courchevel and the Three valleys - virtually the whole domain is accessible by gondola (except C 1650).
How do cablecars go down?

The gondola in Niederau allows access to the western mountain runs, and the draglifts on that side, so you can mix and match. You can access the eastern run fron the gondola, but it is a long run in back to the gondola, if you want to do repeats. The eastern run is also serviced by a chairlift.

Auffach has a main run down that you can access by gondela only.

In Obergurgl you can get the Festkoglbahn up from resort level and there are several blue runs at the top, one of which (No. 6) runs right back into the village again. There is also a t-bar draglift at the top. There is also the Hohe Mut Bahn at the other end of the village. If you get off at the mid-station, you can ski the end of Run 6 back to the village. (Don't go up the second stage, as that's a red run). You can also get a gondola across to Hochgurgl and my map indicates that there are loads of blue runs in Hochgurgl, some of which are served by more gondolas.

This year was my first experience of using a chairlift and it was scary the first time, but I did get used to it eventually.

Allie

Hang on - in Courchevel 6 of the 8 gondolas are accessible with blues and easy reds - this links into Meribel valley where a further 4 gondolas link in and even over to Val Thorens valley with an accessible 6 or 7 more.
Using purely gondolas and blues and easier reds you can ski from Courchevel 1330 right over to the top of the Cime De Carron at 3200m and into the next valley - and GET BACK on blues and not difficult red.
It would be a real challenge to the legs to complete this in a day!
So - that is at least 16 gondolas plus two or three cable cars all linked and accessible without a chair lift.
Le plus grande domain skiable du monde.
:thumbup:

Wow, fantastic response, thanks folks.

Lots of reading to do methinks.

Thanks all,

Owen.