J2Ski group holiday to Tignes January 13th 2013

It snowed loads last night and it's still snowing (and settling) here.

Brooksy - I will try to get back down to Les Brevieres and have a look at the chalet and the village. However, my daughter and I are both pretty keen skiers and I can't see either of us wanting to waste any ski-ing time, so maybe I'll go and have a look at it in the evening.

I forgot to say yesterday that I discovered there's a slalom course that the general public are allowed to have a go on. You pay 2 euros at the end and they tell you how fast you did it. I'd really like a go at that, if I can persuade my daughter into it. She wants to spend the day ski-ing Val d'Isere.

I will write some more tonight, and maybe try and time the gondola up from Les Brevieres.

Edit
I have just noticed that we're on a new page now, so if anyone else wants to come on this holiday please let me know, by pm or posting on here. The details are on the first page.
I am very busy at the moment, here in Tignes, doing serious research into the area :lol:

Ally

Cool! Great to hear you have "loads" of new snow!! I am so happy for you Ally!
Have fun!!!
-cat.

Hi Cat, thanks :D
I think we had about 6 inches of snow last night :D

Just so you can all see what you're missing now, but have a chance of seeing in January, here's a link to the live webcam in Les Brevieres:

http://www.tignes.net/fr/ski-a-tignes/webcams-290.html#Webcam_HD_Br%C3%A9vi%C3%A8res_-_1550_m_-

The snow looks great Ally, wish I could have come with you.

AllyG wrote:. You pay 2 euros at the end and they tell you how fast you did it. I'd really like a go at that, if I can persuade my daughter into it. She wants to spend the day ski-ing Val d'Isere.

If you dont pay do they make you walk back up :shock:

Thanks Icy, for the tip re that slalom course. I will make sure I have my 2 euros in my pocket if I'm planning on having a go at it.

It snowed absolutely masses and masses today - well over a foot I reckon, and all the pistes were just like ski-ing off piste. I have now improved my powder ski-ing abilities considerably simply because I had no choice.

I went down the red double M today and it nearly finished me off because of all the powder. I had to stop about 4 times for a rest. All that bouncing and twisting and bending knees etc. in the powder is totally exhausting, and I nearly melted with overheating.

But I did do a small bit of J2Ski holiday research. I skied down to Les Brevieres and timed how long it took me to walk from the Bonjour-Bonjour chalet to the Sache gondola. It was about 4 minutes. And I sampled the hot chocolate in the restaurant by the piste - very nice but also pretty expensive!

And I had a look where the Intersport shop is. It's practically opposite the chalet. And the Vincents bar is opposite the underground bar. Everything is very convenient. And it is a really pretty village - even better than in the photos.

Ally

I forgot to say that it snowed so much last night they shut nearly all the lifts first thing this morning whilst they blew up the dangerous pistes etc.

We heard the guns and then the most tremendous noise, something like thunder, which was the actual avalanche, wherever it was.

So, I was forced into a bit more research and I had a go on the beginners drag lift in Les Brevieres, as it was the only lift working for half an hour or so this morning. It's actually quite an easy drag lift. It's not one of those nasty ones that yank you up in the air at the start, and it doesn't go too fast either. Some of the little ski school kids fell off it but I think that was more to do with the depth of powder on the drag lift line than the actual lift.

The nursery drag lift uses the lowest part of the piste into Les Brevieres, but it doesn't seem to be a problem because the piste is pretty wide at that point, and not too steep.

And I'm afraid we had a good laugh at the end of the day today (4-30 again) when we came in because there was so much powder (at least a couple of feet) behind the bus stop that when some pedestrians came up from Les Brevieres on the chair lift they had to wade through the snow to reach the road in Les Boisses. And we had a bit of a job getting through it even on skis.

It was a good thing we'd found out where to find the blue piste down from Les Boisses to Les Brevieres yesterday because the piste had totally disappeared under powder this morning. All that could be seen was deep powder and the odd pole here and there :lol:

I did some research into the buses yesterday evening.

There is a free ski bus that runs from here at Les Boisses to Le Lac every half an hour all day until at least midnight. It takes about 15 minutes to get there and stops at the bus station outside the tourist office etc. building - the Maison de Tignes.

But it is rather curious because there's a second bus from Le Lac to Val Claret, also running in a continuous circle. So you do have to make sure you get on the right bus. Some 16 year old boys from this chalet got on the wrong one yesterday and went round in the wrong circle for about half an hour and ended up having to get a taxi back to the chalet :lol:

And if you accidentally end up in Val d'Isere after the lift link to Tignes shuts you can get a paying bus back to Tignes. I asked about this and they said the last one left Val d'Isere at 5-45 p.m. and it costs something like 6 euros.

If you're staying in Les Brevieres it means you can only get back using free transport after the lifts have shut if you go back before dark on the bus and then by ski-ing down the blue from Les Boisses. My daughter said her uni trip did a tobaggan run down in the dark to Les Brevieres as part of a package with Evolution I think, but they had all the gear - sledges and torches etc. I certainly wouldn't try ski-ing down it in the dark myself.

So anyone wanting to go out to the rest of Tignes from Les Brevieres in the evening would have to get a taxi or drive their own car - or I suppose they could stay there after ski-ing and get a taxi back. I asked the owner of the chalet about this and he said people always think they'd like to go somewhere else in the evening but actually there's plenty going on in Les Brevieres itself in the evening and they never bother. I think a taxi costs about 30 euros - it's only about 5 Km to the rest of Tignes.

It's a really lovely sunny day here today (have a look at the webcam) and there's all that lovely, lovely snow out there, so I will be off out there soon. I'll be ski-ing until about 3 p.m. today and then take the mini-bus transfer back to Geneva.

Oh - and my husband seems to be really enjoying himself, even though he isn't ski-ing. I will write more about that later, for Brooksy.