J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by bedrock barney

Some great advice from Andy.

A few more pointers:

Scare chair - make sure you get yourself onto the Leissieres chair which delivers you over the ridge into Le Fornet area. Great fun as long as you look down as you pass over the ridge.

Le Fornet skiing - can be nice and quiet on this side but watch out on cold days as the sun disappears quickly and it can get very cold...

Grande Motte - if the skies are clear, it's well worth getting yourself up to the top of the resort for the views. The Double M red is a great run down into Val Claret

Mini off piste 'canyon' - not sure if there will have been enough snow but there is a fun off piste mini valley just before you get to the base of the Borsat Express and the restaurant in that area. My children love bombing through there with their old dad lagging behind. Andy - am I in the right place?

Restaurant at top of Chaudannes lift in Tignes - great terrace if it's sunny.You can ski down to this from the top of the Aiguille Percee lift along the Corniche piste

Sache black run - not done this yet but I hear it's a fairly epic run although can be a very very long mogul field with no bail outs.

Madeleine restaurant in the Solaise area - one of our favourite spots for lunch overlooking the frozen lake. Nice deck if the weather is good. Can get busy though with big queues. Probably won't be a problem this weekend.

Getting to Tignes - quickest route from Le Laisinant is probably a bus to La Daille, then the telecabin (called Daille I think). You can then ski a short way down to the Tommeuses chair. This takes you up to Toviere. From here you can ski to Val Claret or Tignes 2100 (Le Lac or Le Lavachet). If the Daille telecahin is not running, take the funi up to Bellevarde and ski down to Tommeuses on either Verte, 3i, Diebold, or OK. It's easy to ski too far right though and then you'll end up going all the way back into La Daille.

Have a great trip.

Val d'Isere is my favourite resort along with Zermatt.

I've not stayed in Le Laisinant. It's slightly separated from the main town centre but I think walkable. There are free buses in any case running early to late. You will see that there are two pistes running back into Le Laisinant, one a blue the other a red. The blue run (Piste L) is very often shut due to avalanche risk as it runs within a relatively narrow valley. In fact it's never been open the three times I've skied in EK. The red is German Mattis, a really nice run with some steepish narrow bits.

We use Snowberry for ski hire. I think they'll drive out and pick you up. You can also leave your gear in the shop overnight which is a great service. They won't be the cheapest but I believe they are one of the best.

Can't help with lively bars. Not our thing really. If you want to go mad (and quickly into debt) you can sample La Folie Douce located on the Verte run and also accessed directly from the La Daille funi. Lots of Russians drinking £600 euro bottle of champagne etc. We tend to drop into the `Blue Note Bar at the end of our skiing day. 'Free' nibbles to go with your 6 euro beer.

If you've gone for the EK pass you will struggle to ski the whole place in a week. It's pretty vast even before you look into off piste. There are some great pistes on the Tignes side so I'd advise the whole area pass unless you are beginner skiers. Apparently it's possible to do the '4 corners' in a day - Val d'Isere glacier, Tignes Grande Motte Glacier, Tignes Les Brevieres and Le Fornet. Not tried it yet. Some of my favourite pistes - Arcelle, Orange, Ok, Triffolet, Double M, all of the pistes near L'Aiguille Percee.

Other will no doubt chip in with ideas.

Have a great holiday. We're off there on 18th Dec...also can't wait.

Just checked out the Val d'Isere and Tignes webcams and it's looking good. Snowing hard at the moment, even down to 1,550m

3 and a half weeks and we'll be there. :mrgreen:

and if you are in Hemsedal, the state shop is about 25 miles away! We learned our lesson by the time of our 2nd trip.....

Dan - thanks I'll take a look at the piste map.

Dobby - if we go for it, we'll fly from Humberside. Lands in Trondheim at 12.25pm which hopefully means a drive in daylight. It's £250 cheaper to fly out Sunday, fly back Monday so I think a night in Trondheim at the end sounds good.

Starting to think we might opt for Are. Prices are excellent considering it's half term and flying from our local airport is frankly brilliant. We are usually home within 45 mins of landing.

Can't seem to find a decent hi res post map to have a look at. As a family, we have 'issues' with drag lifts, particularly t bars. Is it possible to get to most areas with chairs?

Thanks Dobby. Trondheim seems to make sense. We use sixt when we are abroad and it looks like there is an airport office. We've used Scandinavian Dreams previously for accommodation and I'll see what's on offer.

Interesting and timely post. We're still debating about our half term trip. I'm keen to avoid the mad rush in the french alps and we can fly to Norway/Sweden from our local airport (Humberside) via Amsterdam which is a big plus for us. Like Dobby, we've skied and enjoyed Hemsedal previously although I think it would now feel too small. From doing some reading Are looks to be about twice the size of Hemsedal. Can anyone shed any light on this?

Dobby - where are you flying into? Also who are you booking the car through?

Cheers!