| Reviews: 37 |
| Review Mod |
| Kirkcudbrightshire |
|
  3 of 5 29/05/2004 @ 19:53 |
|
|
| Price Paid |
| N/A |
|
| Booked Trip Through |
| Road Trip. |
|
| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
|
| Review Detail |
January - Chamonix - Snowed in,having to dig car out every morning to head out of the valley to another resort which has lifts open !
There is virtually nothing open here because of the huge amount of snow which has fallen and the significant avalanche risk that brings with it. The Pisteurs have been working flat out to make some areas safe and also trying to cope with a Heli crash which happened in view of the village of Argentiere where people lost their lives while blasting the snow away from the Grand Montets when the machine hit the lift cables.
We had thought about heading over to Verbier but the pass over from Vallorcine to Martigny in Switzerland was closed. So " what will we do tommorow ?" was the question as we sat drinking Guinness in the Rencard Bar in Argentiere. A girl from back home in Dumfries was working as a rep for Inghams somewhere in Italy and Raymond had her mobile number so we decided to give her a call to see where she was and to see what things were like on the sunny side of Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco as the Italians call it.
She was working in the little resort of La Thuile not far from Courmayeur and she said conditions were pretty good. So that was it , a trip through the Mont Blanc tunnel to Italy in the morning was planned.
Onway back to the Hotel we passed our little 4x4 covered in about 3ft of snow - would we get to Italy was the question in my head as i fell asleep.
Woken up at about 4am with lots of vehicle noise coming from the road outside. I looked out and it was still snowing quite heavilly as the local authority with trucks,snowploughs abd bulldozers worked frantically to clear the narrow main street of Argentiere.
After breakfast we got our kit and headed to the car park and found that they had clamped our vehicle and dragged it away across the road so that they could clear the railway station car park where we had left it the previous afternoon. It was not damaged and after clearing the snow from it we got it started and the heater working flat out.
We drove down to Cham,onto the main road and on up to the entrance to the Mont Blanc tunnel. Not much traffic about and after paying 35.9€ for the privalage we came out the other side about 25 mins later where we were pleased to say that visibility was a lot better as we drove down through Courmayeur a resort i had been through many times without actually going out on its slopes. We then drove on down the duel carriageway to the turn off and headed up the quite steep and narrow road towards La Thuile.
The resort sits quite high at 1440m and is therefore reasonably snow sure. There are 17 lifts here consisting of one gondola,10 chairlifts and 6 drag lifts as well as the link over to the French resort of La Rosiere which makes this a reasonable sized area.
First impressions were of a spread out,partially purpose built resort which certainly looks more French than Italian.
We found the large car park right through at the far end of the village at the base of the lifts. There were not many vehicles there as we got our kit and went to meet up with Sheree who was working for most of the day but arranged to meet us in the evening for dinner.
By now the weather was mostly overcast and we encountered heavy snow showers between one or two sunny spells. We took the main access gondola up to Les Suches at 2200m where visibility was worse!
The slopes were practically empty and i was surprised to see lots of untracked powder both on piste and between the trees. We hit the black "Muret" piste and had a great run in knee deep powder back to the base where there were some big puddles of slush. The previous week these lower slopes had been green fields as there had been a lot of heavy rain which had been falling as snow higher up. Luckily temperatures had dropped and the snow was now down at resort level.
We had another few runs cutting through the trees and back to the base in some lovely conditions as we hoped visibility would improve so that we could head up onto the higher open slopes above the treeline.
Because of high winds most of the upper chairs were closed and we only had a couple of long drag lifts up to Gran Testa (2379m) to play on.It was like being back on the White Lady T-bar at Cairngorm as the wind blew you strongly to the left of the drag track and the small pellets of hail and icy snow battered the face - great fun !
The runs up here from what i could see and feel under my board were quite uninspiring - pretty flat blues that eventually took you back to Les Suches as you fought against the wind to get any speed at all. It looked like a great area for beginners as the slopes were wide and gentle and on a warm sunny day people would learn the basics up here in no time.
We traversed over to what looked like a restaurant near the Chaz Dura chair, it was deserted as we looked inside.The waiter did not seem very friendly and looked like he was happy to have no customers that day as he made no effort to welcome us so we about turned and headed all the way back to the village for lunch.
Near the lifts we took a walk down the main street and could find nowhere open for lunch except a take-away pizza/sandwich shop so we decided to hunt for food back up the hill.
We went to the restaurant just down below Les Suches at the top of the Bosco Express chair. This was a delightful little place in which to escape from the elements outside. Good food and a nice atmosphere in a smallish wooden chalet where virtually every visitor had left their "nom de plume" or some small drawing on every inch of every table,chair and wall in the place.
After a good lunch we decided just to have a few more runs on the lower slopes which by looking at the piste map seem to be the most challenging part of the area. I found a few good runs through the well spaced trees which ran down below the gondola and chairlift back to the bottom.After an hour or so i decided to call it a day and went back to the car to get changed.
We were meeting up for dinner at 19.30 and found we now had 4 hours to spare. We could have done witha private chaufeur as it was no good one of us drinking while the other had to drive.We took a walk around the old part of the village across the river then back to the car. There are very few bars here and the ones we saw were pretty quit and uninspiring. We decided to drive down to Courmayeur for a look around the shops and to people watch as the fur coated brigade strolled along the narrow streets among the fancy shops,bars and hotels.We had a drink in one of the popular bars before driving back up to La Thuile for dinner.
We went to a superb traditional Italian Trattoria which was away past the far end of the main base area carpark but i cant remember the name of the place. The food and service were excellent. We were chatting away when i suddenly remembered that the Mont Blanc tunnel had certain travel restrictions put on it at night when it was reopened after the fire. Someone said that at night traffic only went in one direction but the owner phoned and got told we would make it back to France that night after all.We said our goodbyes and headed home arriving back in Argentiere by 11pm.
It had been a good day as we parked the vehicle up for the night and as we walked down to the pub the snow came down again....was it ever going to let up? |
|
| Strengths |
La Thuile would be a good place to learn and for early intermediates.
Good snow record.
Linked with La Rosiere in France. |
|
| Weaknesses |
Not much in the way of challenging slopes - probably done most of the hardest stuff ii one morning on our visit.
Very quiet at night (i expect anyway!) |
|
| Similar Resorts Visited |
| Over 140 |
|
|
|
|
|
 2 of 5 16/10/2002 @ 22:36 |
|
|
| Times Visited |
| Just Once |
|
| Review Detail |
La Thuile is situated near Courmayeur, just on the border with France and is paired up with the small French resort of La Rossiere.
La Thuile is small and fairly unremarkable, but on the whole reasonably pleasant. It offers little in the way of challenges for the more advanced boarder/skier but is ideal for beginners.
We visited La Thuile last March for one week, booked through Crystal. We stayed at the Piccolo San Bernardino which was as bad a hotel as I've ever experienced. I won't go into details but suffice to say, the food from this so called friendly family run hotel was extremely basic and the image of four dirty apples, served up in a bowl of water for desert one eveing will stay with me forever, not to mention the never ending sight of Pork Escalope on the menu for six out of the seven evenings. On the fourth night we had had enough and decided to forgo the half-board option that we had paid for and decided to get food elsewhere. In our opinion this hotel does not deserve the acclaim it gets, in the end we complained to Crystal and got £40 each in compensation.
This was the first time my Italian girlfriend has been to a ski resort, so I was keen to get her the best instruction, i.e. I taught myself snowboarding 7 years ago and I now have plenty of bad habits. The local ski school offered two instructors, after the first day the snowboard school that I had placed my girlfirned in was split between the two instructors, the female taking the male contingent of the group and the bloke the females. It was at this point that it became apparent that my girlfriend was about to waste the following 5 mornings whilst he chased after the English girls, generally farted around and tried to get into their knickers. In the end I resorted to doing his job for him in the afternoon. Both instructors were billed as "English Speaking", that means that their level of English is about the same as my Italian, which is just about good enough to order a beer. Quiet often my girlfriend had to act as an interpreter for the instructor. It was, on the whole, quiet a pathetic escapade and one which regret insisting on forcing upon my girlfriend.
Fortunately the friends that we had and the relaxing nightlife that we found there more than made up for the disappointments on the slopes and in the hotel. It was for this that La Thuile was an enjoyable holiday, though it will not be on my list resorts to go to again. |
|
| Strengths |
| Visually fairly pretty, reasonable restuarants and bars on and off the slopes, though not much for the active clubber. Ideal for families who wish to take it easy. |
|
| Weaknesses |
| Lack of challenging runs, too many drags especially long ones with 'dog-legs' in them. Far too many flat spots on the border with France. "English Speaking Snowboard Instructors" laughable! |
|
|
|