Winter Underway En Francais
Winter Underway En Francais
Published : 19-Nov-2010 10:15
Val Thorens
For some reason France has lagged behind the other major Alpine nations for its pre-season ski opportunities. Tignes, once open for 12 months of the year, still manages to stay open for about nine months and has been stoically offering France's only outdoor lift-served snow since mid-September (there's also the world's biggest indoor run up at Amneville in the north east of the country), but while half-a-dozen or more areas have been open since October in each of Austria, Italy and Switzerland, France has stuck with just the one choice. Well apart from Les 2 Alpes opening for the October English and French school holidays week only anyway.
Why no other resorts challenge this regimented season structure is a bit of a mystery. Presumably economics play a part for the big players with their rigid Saturday-to-Saturday booking structure requiring enough guests to make it worthwhile employing enough staff to open, but that's not the case with the small hills.
Well anyway it all changes this weekend when the French areas begin to open, firstly Europe's highest resort, Val Thorens, this weekend, then everyone else en-masse over the next couple of weekends.
Val Thorens will be running seven lifts (two funitel gondolas, two chairs and three drag lifts) and 22 kilometres of easily accessible ski runs will open at 9am on Saturday 20th November . There's 40cm of snow at resort level and 70cm at the summit, and the season has five and a half months to run through to 8th May 2011.
There'll be several events as an added bonus for opening weekend. The Ski Force Winter Tour offers the chance of free ski tests for equipment from 15 major brands; the Andros Trophy at the ice driving track will see racers complete the first laps of the season on the Alain Prost ice racing track.
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