Back from Le Plagne

I've been back a week but was away with work all of last week so my first opportunity to write a bit of a trip report after my trip to Le Plagne.

Who went? Myself a reasonably advanced skier, my other half a good intermediate, my mate a qualified instructor who I'll never be as good as! 2 boarders who decided to rent skis due the hard packed and icy conditions, and 3 others all intermediates.

Basic Info: <2 hours from Chambery airport, in the Haute Tarentaise region of the French Alps. We went with Crystal due to their 2 for 1 lift pass offer which made it cheaper than putting a DIY trip together.

Lifts: Le Plagne is a huge area on its own, but when taking into account the link to Les Arc to form Paradiski the lift system is stupendous. We had area passes with the intention of hopping over to Les Arc for one day. In the end we stuck to our plan and skied the whole week (7 days on snow) with one day in Les Arcs, and still didn't necessarily cover every run that Le Plagne had to offer. Lift system was good, drag lifts are few and far between and very easy to avoid think I used a drag twice in 7 days but only by choice. Couple of Gondolas to get you higher up the Roche De Mio gondola could get mighty busy at times and could be avoided if you wanted. The rest was made up of chair lifts, some slower than others and a couple of twins higher up the mountain.

Terrain: Very varied, and an intermediates paradise. I take the point from the recent post about the grading inconsistencies of some pistes and the conditions compounded this. Some Blues were flat and cruisey whilst others had some pretty challenging steep sections. It hadn't snowed since the 11th of January so lower down especially the conditions weren't inspiring to the more nervous skiers in our group, some of the runs which were the main entrance points to the villages were really polished as the day got on there was a particularly nasty fall on the blue run leading into Le Plagne Centre. Some interesting reds and a few blacks made up the rest.

Off Piste: Me and my mate decided to get a guide on second day for the morning and booked this through Oxygen in Le Plagne Centre. Looking round there were tracks everywhere so we were interested to see where he'd take us. On the first day we'd went over the Roche De Mio in the old gondola up to the glacier. Over the back of the RDM there is a pretty steep drop down we decided we'd probably not have a crack at that but the next day we skied it! I won't go into every detail about our off piste adventures as I could write page after page. We got the same guide the next day and I had what was probably my best days skiing of all time, on the third day I was done in but the guide offered for us to join him and his mate on his day off free of charge. I declined as I didn't feel up to it and at times had skied up to my limit, so my mate who is a far better skier than me went off and got offered a job next season by the end of the day! It goes to show you can have great off piste skiing if you get a guide even when the conditions don't appear to be great. Le Plagne has massive amounts of easily accessible off piste, if only it had snowed it would have been of biblical proportions!My best wipeout of the week involved us going down a narrow gully, lost it and slid on my back for quite some distance before being able to swing my legs around to stop myself when I eventusally did stop I didn't have a clue where I was!

Accommodation: We stayed in 1800 which is almost entirely made up of Chalets. We stayed in the 4 bed roomed apart-chalet Cretier in the larger Marmottes building. Well placed having the Spar and Intersport directly behind for amenities and aprox 5ish mins to one of 2 chair lifts. I'd walk down in my walking boots then change into my ski boots and just leave my boot bag and shoes and it was fine. Not the place to go for Après, a couple of bars of note with the Bobsleigh bar, a British ran place that shows the football and La Mine which actually got pretty rowdy the night we were in.

Conclusion: Had an awesome week, it was hard going for some in our group at times who took a few confidence knocks and the ice became a bit of a nemesis for some. Personally if I hit ice I just point my skis down hill but it's hard to let go and just do it for the more nervous. Would love to return back to the area particularly if the conditions were a bit better but that's what can happen in January, and the week of sun and blue skies was pretty nice.

Excellent TR, very informative about a place which I have never been. Goes to show, the attitude to skiing can make most conditions "ideal". One q: how would you compare Le Plagne to Tignes or Val d'Isere or Verbier or Chamonix ?

Great to hear you had a good time, i too loved my time there and may go back again sometime soon.
That road up has a fair few hairpins eh??

@Dustyfog,

Difficult question to answer, which deserves more thought but a quick summary!

LP vs Cham, If we'd have had these conditons but in Cham I'd rather have been in LP. When you've got deep powder Cham is hard to beat for off piste, on piste LP top trumps easily. We hit some great off piste with minimal hiking.

LP vs Tignes, harder to call I liked the range of tree lined runs in Les Arc with plenty in LP too. Tignes more expensive to get there I've found and a more difficult pistes generally IMO. Tignes high altitude can be cold and windy in the wrong conditions.

Verbier gets top trupmed for on piste action but also has epic off piste and better night life than LP which is probably LP's only downside. I didn't think of LP as a meca for off piste but after my experience it's up there.

All in all it worth a look for anyone, and seems to crop up in late deals more e.g. to go the first week in March self catering is cheaper than you can get to Andorra for.

going on the 26/02. cant wait but hoping for snow....