Val Thorens & 3V: the other report (7-21 Jan)

There's probably not much new to be said about Val Thorens and the Three Valleys. In preparation of my trip to VT I lurked around these pages quite a bit to gather info and tips. So here's a report of my holiday, hopefully it will be of use to some here.

THE BACKGROUND
It was time for the 3 brothers to take holiday together, without the families in tow. Our kids are too young to appreciate the trip, yet old enough for the wives to handle them in our absence. We're around 40 years old and owe ourselves a bit of a break from it all.
It was always going to be an alpine holiday.
Brother 1 has 5 weeks skiing experience and is a competent intermediate. Brother 2 has never set foot on a ski slope. I am an intermediate with 3 weeks snowboarding experience, though the majority of that was back in 2000.
Brother 2 fancied himself as a hot-shot skateboarder back in the day, so he decreed it had to be a snowboarding trip.
For the sake of solidarity and the 'brothers together' theme Brother 1 agreed to give snowboarding a bash, so there we were - strapped to snowboards.

WHY VAL THORENS?
As we live in South Africa, an alpine holiday is never going to be an annual affair, and it involves quite a bit of advance planning, not to mention budgeting. We couldn't take any chances with lack of snow, so our main criteria was to pick a snow-sure resort.
We wanted a minimum of 100km of piste as 2 of us were staying for 2 weeks, we wanted reasonably easy access from an airport and some options in terms of securing self-catering accommodation. Avoriaz, Serre Chevalier, Le Arcs, Tignes, Val Gardena, Cervinia, Skiwelt and Sauze were all on the shortlist of destinations, but ultimately VT came up tops in terms of meeting our criteria and budget.

GETTING THERE
We flew Turkish Air from Cape Town to Istanbul, and on to Lyon (around 900 Euro return). From Lyon we took the train to Moutiers - a 2.5 hour journey. The train was really easy and comfortable, the station at Lyon St Exupery airport is linked to the arrivals terminal. The train cost around 28 Euro each way, thus significantly cheaper than a coach.
We planned it so we would arrive in Moutiers on Friday evening 6 January; this would enable us to take an early bus up to VT and be on the slopes by 10h30 on Saturday, thereby gaining an extra day on the slopes.
On arrival at Moutiers on Friday evening, we tried to book our bus tickets for the next morning, only to be told that the road up the valley had been closed 24 hours prior due to the mother of all dumps, and there was no certainty as to when it would be re-opened.
We were relieved to find on Saturday morning that the road had been re-opened; the 40km up to VT took 1h15 minutes, we spoke to a Dutch guy on Sunday, he had left home by car early on Saturday morning, arrived at Moutiers at around 17h00 and it took him a further 3 hours up to VT from there.

ACCOMMODATION, EQUIPMENT AND LESSONS
We rented a one-bedroom apartment in the L'Orsiere block, right next to the piste that runs along the Castor & Pollux magic carpet. The ski room has direct access to the slopes, so true ski-in and ski-out. The apartment is 32sq/m, fairly generous by French standards, and is kitted to sleep up to 6 people. At 650 Euro for 2 weeks it was good value for money.

We had done some research on-line for the best equipment rental prices but decided not to book in advance. On arrival we popped into a few ski shops (VT is quite compact and everything was within 5 minutes walk of our apartment) and, by playing them off against each other, we managed to negotiate good prices. We went with Skimium and they offered good service and were happy to let Brother 1 swap his snowboard for skis after the first week, at no extra cost.

Due to the mixed reviews I've seen of ESF's service, I decided to try one of the other schools. Free School Attitude offered really good rates for a private small group, so we opted to go with them. We booked 5 sessions of 1.5 hours, total cost of 315 Euros. FSA were happy to accommodate our request that the first lesson should be on Saturday afternoon, meaning we spent 1 less day stuffing around by ourselves. We were instructed by Chloe for 2 days, and by Arsene for 3 days. Both instructors have several years experience, were very encouraging, communicated well and in my opinion were particularly good at identifying mistakes with our techniques and giving the relevant person individual attention to rectify the mistake. I would not hesitate to use their services again.

COMMUNICATION AND GADGETS
I bought an Orange (France) sim card on arrival at Lyon airport for 5 Euro, and for a further 5 Euro I had unlimited data usage for 7 days – certainly a whole lot cheaper than the roaming charges my local cell provider charges. I struggled with Skype so I bought wi-fi access from one of the paid providers. This was a waste of money as the signal was not very strong and the band-width was not great either.

I used an app called Alpinereplay to track my distance, speed, vertical meters etc. It overlays onto GoogleEarth and did the job for me.

I managed to borrow a GoPro camera for the trip. They are very easy to use and great fun, particularly when reviewing the slope action in the evenings. A word of advice when filming other people: unless the camera is within 5 meters of its subject, the subject tends to get lost in the image due to the fish-eye nature of the lens.


THE SLOPE TIME

What can I say: record dumps followed by 10 straight blue-sky days. The snow was fantastic, the slopes were generally well groomed, and I hardly ever felt crowded on the slopes. At most of the lifts we would have no more than 3 groups in front of us. Worst case we might have had to wait 5-8 minutes on the odd occasion.
It was not the kind of trip where I was going to try my hand at off-piste, but it was evident that there was a lot of fun to be had for those who are into it. Some routes, like the one over the back of La Masse looked more like an ungroomed piste than an off-piste route, though.

Val Thorens:
As we had lessons for much of the first week, we decided to get Val Thorens-Orelle passes for the first week. While my brothers honed their skills on some gentle slopes in the mornings, I would go off on my own for a couple of hours. I managed to ride more than 80% of the slopes in VT and quickly found a few favourites I would return to.
In the Caron area the Col de L'Audzin is a fantastic red, a bit exposed near the top, but it opens up into sweeping switch-backs, well worth a few runs - if not for the rush, then for the great views from the top of Cime Caron. Below the Boisment lift there are some nice fast runs, particularly Tetras, a blue. This part of the mountain seemed to generally be quite quiet.
In the Peclet and Thorens area, Moraine, Genepi, Christine, Les Vires and Lac Blanc are fairly wide runs, great for cruising, carving or to strech the legs a bit.

The biggest disappointment of the trip was our excursion over to Orelle. Besides the fact that it is nice and sunny there (but then it was sunny on VT's south-facing slopes as well), there is nothing to commend about it. It is not the 'out of the way' spot it is said to be - in fact the routes there and back were quite busy. The 2 main runs down to Orelle are a blue, Gentaines, and a red, Mauriennaise. These 2 pistes zig-zag across each other on about 6 occasions - it does not make for an enjoyable ride when you have to slow right down each time you approach an intersection. The route back, via Chamois is also a disaster. It is marked blue, but was narrow, steep in places, icy and tracked out when we did it. We did it on our 6th day and both my brothers decided it was safer to take off their boards and walk down the first 300m.

Meribel and Courchevel:
Brother 2 returned home after the first week and when Brother 1 swapped his snowboard for skis, we were on equal footing. We therefore decided that we would get the 3 Valleys pass for the second week and we clocked over 40kms on the slopes each day.
The main route from VT over to Meribel is via the Col de la Chambre, on a red run called Lac de la Chambre. It is an invigorating run early in the morning with a couple of long shcusses, where one has to point the board/skis down the hill and hope you have enough speed to make it through the valley. Our favourite runs in Meribel were below the Col de la Loze and amongst the trees around Meribel 1450. We found the runs below Saulire quite tracked out, even early in the day, and sadly this put us off ever considering booking a holiday in Meribel. It seems that that part of the mountain carries more traffic than it can handle, and as a consequence was not much fun.
We spent 2 days over in Courchevel and enjoyed it tremendously. Creux, a red run off the top of Saulire is fantastic, as are most of the runs over Chanrossa and the area above Courchevel 1650. Incidentally, how insane is the GD Couloir, a black run off the top of Saulire?! We watched a few people venture down there and wondered about their mental state.
We were quite excited to explore the wooded area above La Tania, but when we got there we found that the slopes were very icy. It is really picturesque, though and I would imagine that with fresh snow it must be a great area to ride.

Les Menuires and St Martin
La Masse is neither the open secret nor the gem it might have been at one stage. We arrived at the Masse 1 lift at around 10h00 one morning - there were queues and as a result of the traffic it was carrying, the sunny slopes were pretty busy and most of the groomed snow had been carved away, leaving the slopes quite icy. The runs that were in the shady areas were a lot quieter and the Fred Covili and Les Enverses runs were in a good condition and good for a few loops.
On the other side of the village we found the runs higher up above Les Menuires quite good, but the lower runs were extremely busy.
The runs above St Martin are amongst my favourite. Jerusalem lived up to its billing and is a must-do. The Grand Lac - Pelozet - Biolley run from 3 Marches all the way into St Martin carries on forever and is guaranteed to leave one with burning thighs and a huge grin from ear to ear.

IN CONCLUSION
If I had to pick a negative, my biggest issue would be the apparent absence of piste patrol. VT does attract quite a lot of students and with that comes some immature and reckless behaviour (geez, that sentiment makes me feel old). People who go way too fast on crowded pistes and busy intersections need to be reined in.
The positives however far outweigh the negatives. Piste preparation was generally good, and in poor weather (our last 2 days) lifts are kept open as long as it is safe to do so - they are not closed at the first sign of snowfall. Lift queues were never really an issue and the variety in pistes is mind-boggling.
Lastly, there seems to be quite a bit of misinformation on the cost of things there. In VT the prices in supermarkets are quite fair, and even in mountain restaurants you can pick up an espresso for 1.80 Euro and a Spag Bol for 7.80 Euro. Beers at La Folie Douce were 3.50 for a small draft, and 6.00 for a large draft. We stayed in in the evenings and drank supermarket beer, so I can't comment on the prices in the village restaurants and pubs.
Would I go back to VT and the 3 Valleys? Yes, it ticks my boxes and in my book is worth more than 1 visit. I would however like to perhaps go somewhere outside of France before I go back - variety, spice, life and all that.

Wow that's a thorough trip report. Thanks. Glad you had a good time, and the snow is very good for this time of season, so you are very lucky.

I will remember the following useful gem of tip - thanks:

I bought an Orange (France) sim card on arrival at Lyon airport for 5 Euro, and for a further 5 Euro I had unlimited data usage for 7 days – certainly a whole lot cheaper than the roaming charges my local cell provider charges.

Did you find the Rhum box bar in Val-T?

:D

Excellent report Dan-o, especially as you are a relative newcomer to the forums.

Thank you for taking the time to write it, I am sure there are many people who will find it very usefull :thumbup:

Great report - thanks Dan-o! Glad you had a good time. :thumbup:

Sounds great that Dan-o, very much relects my experience while I was there also.

With regard to Orelle, I went there because the highest point of the 3 valleys is in that area - 3200m. Like you quite rightly say, there is not much there - the red that drops into the valley is challenging in places to say the least. The black into Orelle from the top of Cime Caron is fun :D

Re Meribel. We went there twice. First time did the lac de la chambre route followed by the blue ours into Meribel. Ours is painfully flat through the woods. The 2nd time we got to Plans De Mains, went up that chair and skied a great red down into Meribel (monterat)

We did not make it to courcheval, but have been there before and know the run you are on about :shock:

steverandomno wrote:
Did you find the Rhum box bar in Val-T?

Steverandomno, I heard stories about this bar but we hardly ventured out in the evenings - mostly we were pretty knackered and happy to stay in.

Iceman, I had read somewhere on this forum about how flat Ours is, so we took the Plan de Mains lift on both occasions

Good choice, believe me!

I thought my heart was going to explode through my chest while pushing and skating :(

Iceman wrote:
I thought my heart was going to explode through my chest while pushing and skating :(

Iceman - that would be another good one for the romance thread :lol:

Dano-o,
I totally agree with you about Meribel. We'd stayed for a week, twice, in both Courchevel and Val Thorens and skied through Meribel, but our last holiday was the first one where we'd actually stayed in Meribel. So, we already knew that Meribel generally has the worst snow and queues of the 3 Valleys, and our stay there confirmed this view. At the end of the week my daughter summed it up perfectly by saying 'I know why people stay in Meribel - it's because it's so easy to get out of it and go to Courchevel or Val Thorens.'

The ESF ski school also seem to have the same opinion as her. We'd done lessons with them in Courchevel and Val Thorens and never needed the 3 Valleys pass (we just bought the day upgrade to ski all three valleys for the day) but the instructor in Meribel was quite adamant about how we needed the 3 Valleys pass because he was determined to take us out of Meribel.

But we really liked Orelle. Maybe it was because it was empty and beautifully quiet when we were there. And that steep section of the red run is where our instructor tested our guts to see if we were brave enough to go into the advanced group by seeing how high up we were prepared to start a schuss.

Ally