International (Europe/Japan/Southern Hemisphere) Trip report Christmas & New Year’s - France

[Cheizz]

Phase 1 - Preparations & planning

We’re a party of three advanced skiers (41-48 years old) who enjoy both groomer skiing and lift-served off-piste skiing. For the two-week Christmas & New Year’s break, this is the plan:

Saturday, December 24th: drive to France (an 11-hour drive from the Netherlands), check-in into our apartment in Termignon (Haute Maurienne)

Sunday - Friday: 6 days of skiing in the 5 areas that make up the old ‘Eskimo’ ski pass: Val Cenis (the biggest, 2 days of skiing), Valfréjus (1 day), La Norma (1 day), Aussois (1 day), Bonnval-sur-Arc (1 day). These are all small-ish family ski areas. We expect the crowds on the beginner slopes. Higher up, in the alpine terrain, we expect to have the place to ourselves. Even during the Christmas holiday.

Saturday, December 31st: check-out and drive to Le Grand Domaine (Valmorel and Saint-Francois-Longchamps) for 1 day of skiing. Later that afternoon, we drive to the Three Valleys (Val Thorens), where we’ll spend the second week. That’s about an hour of driving - could be a bit more if it snows.

Saturday, January 7th: we drive back to the Netherlands.

For all of us, the Three Valleys area is well-known. All the other areas are new to all three of us.

I will post pictures, condition information, highlights, and flops each day.

 

[DanishRider]

Maybe swing by Saint Sorlin - A great area in Maurienne valley !

 

[Cheizz]

That's for another trip. My two ski mates have been there already and they both were not impressed (least impressive in France, they said). I'm not that keen myself, to be honest. That's why we prefer St. Francois on our transition day.

 

[Cheizz]

Snowpack is starting to grow. There already is snow on the ground in the area. In the coming weeks, it will get barraged with storms. Good stuff. The picture below is the snowfall until and including next Sunday. More is on the way...

 

[DanishRider]

That's for another trip. My two ski mates have been there already and they both were not impressed (least impressive in France, they said). I'm not that keen myself, to be honest. That's why we prefer St. Francois on our transition day.

That’s a surprise to me - Valmorel/Longchamps ia maybe the most monotonous area I personally have visited in France - The area above St. Sorlin have some of the best pistes in the Maurienne - this might of course be personal preference

 

[Cheizz]

That’s a surprise to me - Valmorel/Longchamps ia maybe the most monotonous area I personally have visited in France - The area above St. Sorlin have some of the best pistes in the Maurienne - this might of course be personal preference

Like I said: Grand Domaine (St. Francois etc.) is an unknown to all of us, whereas Les Sybelles was mostly a disappointment to some of us. We'll see. It will be fine for a day, I'm sure.

 

[Cheizz]

After an uneventful 11-hour drive yesterday, we had our first ski day today.

We stay in Termignon, one of the villages of the Val Cenis ski area. We skied in Val Cenis. Here are some impressions:

 

[Cheizz]

Today: Bonneval-sur-Arc. Don't go here. Tiny, badly organized, inefficient.



After 90 minutes we drove back to Val Cenis to ski there.

 

[dbostedo]

Tiny, badly organized, inefficient.

OK, now I'm curious... how was it badly organized and inefficient?

 

[Cheizz]

Old ass lifts (the calf-bruising ones, without conveyers), you need a draglift in between to move around the area, that sort of thing.

 

[Jenny]

View attachment 186895

Gorgeous!

 

[Cheizz]

Today, we skied in Valfréjus. A gorgeous little ski area with lots of great lift-access off-piste terrain. The conditions were not ideal for that (very thin snow cover, wind crust, sharks everywhere), so we stayed on the groomers mostly.

 

[Cheizz]

On Wednesday, we went to Aussois. Nothing special really, but we had a good time in the sun.

 

[Cheizz]

Today, we're in La Norma. It’s a graag and cloudy day and the resort is not particularly photogenic. Only one picture today, overlooking the city of Modane and the Maurienne Valley

 

[Cheizz]

30th of December.
Val Cenis, revisited. Cloudy and loght snow today.

 

[Cheizz]

Last day of the year... feels kore like last day of the season. Today at St. François Longchamps, 10 degrees C and half of the runs open. Nice transit day. This afternoon, we drive to Val Thorens for the seconden week of our trip.