J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Grizwald

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.

guess it also depends on how much cash you have to burn, £500 upwards for afull set up is a little or allot to most people or to me 1 to 2 weeks skiing abroad! I've went down the eBay route before, but in my experience it seems quite difficult to pick a pair up for a reasonable price. I've seen 5 year old skis go for over £300 when I'd fancied a punt at less than half of that max.

For me it also depends how many weeks of the season you'd realistically ski as a pure cost equation a new pair of planks bought for only a week or two a season doesn't add up for me I'd rather rent or in your case maybe get more experience under your belt until you know for sure what sort of skiing you do.

I've demo'd skis at indoor slopes which is an ok way of tryig several pairs to get a basic feel but is hard to give a proper run due to the conditions etc.

Just got back from Le Plagne after an awesome week. I don't think it had snowed since jan 11th as a result the pistes were very hard packed and icy in places towards the end of the day the popular access routes got extremely polished making what should have been tame blues and reds much more difficult to get down than they should have been and as a result saw some nasty falls! However this aside most runs were in great nick and I had a huge amount of fun and also had a guide for for a few days and possibly had my best days skiing of all time! I'm sure by the time you go there will be atleast a few dumps it would have been awesome to get just a fresh covering even but was fine as it was with bright sunny weather for great visibility for the more nervous in our group.

Will add a trip report soon.

There's certainly enough when combined with Le Thuile to keep you entertained, I enjoyed it all in all was a fantastic holiday. There are all the usual facilities such as hire shops etc, if you're not tied to a particular resort I'd let the price decide. From a purely skiing perspective as an intermediate you may enjoy a bigger resort that has more of everything as the pistes aren't huge in Le Ros and it does take a bit of time getting to and from Italy through buttons and flat tracks back to Le Ros. When we went it was ideal for our group with several beginners if I were going with a group of more advanced intermediates and advanced skiers I wouldn't consider it.

I double checked what Crystal/Thompsons current policy is for carriage and the girl who I spoke to said that it's 6kg but so long as everything is in 1 bag that's acceptable i.e you can have 2 pairs of skis in so long as they fit in the same bag. My boots will be going in with my skis my boots weigh over 5kgs alone and the bag I'm taking 3 so it doesn't leave you much to play with up to 20kgs.

Enjoyable video to get me in the mood for our visit on Saturday. Looked pretty icy although I'm hoping the forecast falls this week come to improve things a bit. We've some beginners and nervous intermediates so hopefully they'll be ok. Did you do any off piste a couple of us plan to get a guide for a day atleast and go explore.

Go high, I was up in Scotland for last Easter and it was superb! Should be able to get a good deal that late in the season. As it's been pretty spring like in the Alps at the moment who knows what it will be like?!

Read this post with some interest as we're heading to Le Plagne on Saturday and our group is a very mixed bag in terms of experience, with a complete beginner right up to a Ski pro. Think whilst the others are picking up their hire gear me and my mate will head out to scout things out to give people an easier introduction while they get their confidence back.