J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

Nice to see you around PrivateBryan :)
Do you fancy ski-ing/boarding with us in Sauze d'Oulx on the 11th of January?

As I said before, there are no rooms left to book directly with the hotel Sauze, where we're going to stay, but you can still book the Sauze hotel with Crystal, or the Stella Alpina hotel, which is 30m away from the Sauze and right by the piste, with Neilson.

Thanks for posting up the video of ski-ing in Sauze, Snapzzz :)

That's what we need - sunshine like that! It looks great :)

A couple of years ago my daughter and I were ski-ing at Tignes/Val d'Isere at the end of April, and there was 3 feet of fresh snow and hardly anyone around. We were in one of the mountain restaurants and we were the only customers in it!
That was the best ski-ing ever! :)

Snapzzz wrote:Careful when you head to Sestriere, if you don't down lift on the gondola then you will have to walk once you hit the village. That is annoying, i pay for a lift pass to go up not down.

Thanks Snapzzz :)
Is that a mid-station on the gondola I can see on the piste map (small dot!)?
If so, would it be possible to ski down to the mid-station and then take the gondola the rest of the way down to Sestriere in order to avoid the walk in the village?

Thanks guys :)
It sounds as though the ski area will be fine for us. We haven't got any expert skiers or boarders in the group yet so I'm sure the area will be challenging enough for us. And by the sounds of things, trying to interpret the piste map will be a major challenge!

Has anyone got any tips on how to get about the ski area and avoid the worst mistakes on the piste map?

And if anyone is interested in coming with us and staying in the Sauze hotel, they'd better get a move on! The last room in that hotel with booking.com went a few days ago, although I think Crystal still have availability.

I think one of the problems with recommending places is that you need to have stayed there fairly recently.
My daughter and I stayed in Les Olympiades (Belambra), in the Caron district in the centre of VT about 8 years ago, and it was really great. We went with Inghams and the apartment was fine and the location was really good.
But I had a look at the reviews for it on Trip Advisor just now and they were really terrible - it's 27th out of 30 in VT :(
So obviously it's gone seriously downhill since we were there.

I would have thought you'd be safe enough going with Pierre et Vacances and staying somewhere like Les Temples du Soleil.

Top on Trip Advisor (1st out of 37) is Oxalys but it's a luxury sort of place, and a lot more expensive :(

It is a rowdy, partying sort of resort, so there's going to be noise at night if you're in the centre. And what's more, when we were there the snow-ploughs were working all night and we could hear them.
But pretty much everywhere is more or less ski in/ski out - which is great :)

Thanks Icy, for the additional info :)

I found an interactive piste map here:
http://sauzeonline.com/wp-content/uploads/Pistemap.pdf

Thanks Snapzzz and Icy :)

If you have time, could you let us know the worst mistakes on the piste map, so that we don't get lost etc. ...

Do you know anything about the buses between the villages? Do you have to pay for them?

I was reading the Leader's report from the Ski Club of GB today, for Sauze, and they skied over to Montgenevre and got the bus back from Claviere:

Perfect blue skies (combined with yesterday's new snow) meant conditions were perfect for our planned trip to Montgenevre. We made good time on the Olympica run down to Sansicario before catching the sequence of gondolas and chairlifts to Col Bercia where we found ecellent conditions on the wide Red 93. Crossing over into France we found great sunny sliing on the wide red runs down Les Anges before we took the (steep!) drag lift over towrds Rocher de L'Aigle which provided great skiing in a spectacular, high Alpine environment. After a steep run down Black 100 we had a latish lunch on the sun terrace at Rifugio Gimont before heading down to Claviere and finally the 15.50 bus back to Sauze. A great day!