Tony_H wrote:Good point, well made.
I'd suggest the following add up to make it the best resort:
Snow record/altitude
Big ski area, choice of runs
Pistes and off piste options
Nice village base
Cracking scenery
Real mountains, not rolling hills?
Good lifts system
Mixed runs ie blues, reds, blacks
Sensation of travel around the area
Good bars/restaurants to enjoy in resort
Factor into that other individual requirements, such as the run off the mountain (although to me thats not so important as you can always take a lift/bus)
I think this is a pretty good summary Tony and I am sure others might suggest additions and/or deletions. For example, reasonable transfer times, ski-in/ski-out availability etc.
In terms of the various resorts mentioned, Alpe d'Heuz would be one of my favourite resorts with some of the nicest and best skiing in the alps. But I would not claim that it has it all. Why not? Because the village is unattractive and the apres-ski virtually non-existent (unless you count a noisy, fake Irish bar that is full of saisonaire's getting plastered on their night off!).
Val D'Isere - again a fantastic ski area. But, expensive, most accommodation a long way from the slopes, ugly spread out village, apres-ski so-so
3V - tricky one to judge. Again skiing is fantastic. But Courcheval is horrendously expensive and the bling is off-putting while Val Thoren is soulless and borders on the desolate Meribel is nice and quite lively but does not really feel like a genuine French resort.
Haven't been to some of the other resorts mentioned and thats why I come back to St Anton. I am not saying it is perfect but I do think it hits the spot under virtually all of the criteria Tony has set out.
Maybe we need to set up a Survey based around Tony's list? Anybody familiar with Survey Monkey or similar to set it up?. I suppose we would need to consider the weighting for each criteria as well