We left the Alps to avoid the storm of April 7-9. It dumped up to 3 feet of snow above 2,000 meters but with a fluctuating rain/snow line and also issues of wind and snow stability. As in the prior week Sunday was the first sunny day but it was again a travel day for us, driving 6 hours from the Cinque Terre.
We stayed in Bourg St. Maurice, a 5 minute drive from the funicular up to Arc 1600. We chose not to stay in a ski resort this time as weather was expected to change and we wanted to remain flexible. We got up the funicular a bit after 9:30AM and I misread the map and started with the Mont Blanc run which returned us to Arc 1600.
Early morning snow was bulletproof below about 1800, a likely rain/snow line during the storm. However we had this view of rock climbers near the Mont Blanc chair.
I knew we needed to do our morning skiing at higher elevation, so we used the Arpette chair to get there. Overview of upper terrain from top of Arpette:
Closer view from Arc 2000 base at center left to Aiguille Rouge upper right at 10,580 feet:
We skied the partially mogulled Bois de l’ours to the Marmottes lift. View from Marmottes past Arc 1950 to Mont Blanc.
Les Arcs probably has the closest Mont Blanc view of the big Tarantaise ski complexes, so Liz took a zoom pic.
We next rode the Varet gondola, which has a few ungroomed ski routes under its north face.
The area directly under the gondola had slid during the recent storm.
There are some longer off piste lines coming down from the Aiguille Rouge.
The Aiguille Rouge tram was not running so we skied the Arondelieres piste from the gondola.
The tram cable and stations are in the background.
We tried the Plagnettes chair.
I tested the mellow ungroomed near the lift, which was decent where skier packed.
The pistes up here were very busy.
This was not a surprise since it was all packed powder vs. the spring conditions lower down.
We moved to the more outlying Grand Col lift.
We sampled some off piste here too.
Coming down from Grand Col we noticed around noon that the tram was still not running. It was quite warm so I suspected the lower runs might have softened and perhaps would not be too busy. Looking down the upper section of the long TransArc gondola:
This was a good call. We had smooth groomer corn to Arc 1600, then to Villandry and finally to Peisey, where the connector tram crosses a gorge to La Plagne.
At the top of the 2300 lift we took a selfie with these peaks.
Closeup view:
The mini-Matterhorn peak is 10,200 foot Aiguille de l’Aliet.
Skiing to Derby Liz is about to punch the hanging hand with Mont Blanc in background.
After one more corn run to Arc 1600 we rode the TransArc gondola back up to the alpine. We skied by a frozen pond where some people were making “crop circle” designs.
On the way to the Varet gondola:
The tram had finally opened and to no surprise it had a 20+ minute line. Logo in waiting area:
As with most high Alps trams, there’s a viewing platform at the top.
12,398 foot Mont Pourri with glaciers:
With likely just the one day at Les Arcs, I was relieved to see that tram open so we could ski Fraser’s favorite piste in the Alps.
The initial drop had some switchbacks which you could cut and ski some ungroomed packed powder. Here the piste opens up more.
There’s a good view NW of off piste routes descending to the Varet gondola.
We saw a couple of guided groups in here when riding the gondola.
Below Lanchettes the piste transitioned to spring conditions. The first red section below the Droset chair looked like wet clumpy moguls so we skied the blue catwalk around that. The lowest red section paralleling Plan des Violettes was more smoothed out and skied well despite the low elevation and being east facing at 4PM. View across the Isere valley to Le Rosiere:
We reached the Plan des Violettes lift having skied 5,925 vertical feet from the top of Aiguille Rouge. This nosed out the 5,575 vertical run from the top of the Pitztal Glacier to Mittelberg as our longest continuous vertical run of this trip.
Riding Droset back out we get a good view of Arc 2000 and Arc 1950 and the ski terrain to the west.
We skied through those resorts to the Comborciere lift, and finally skied Arolla back to Arc 1600 and the top of the funicular, arriving at 5:02PM. Descending the funicular:
This was another day to trying to cover as much ground as possible while the ski conditions were good. Total vertical was 29,800.
We stayed in Bourg St. Maurice, a 5 minute drive from the funicular up to Arc 1600. We chose not to stay in a ski resort this time as weather was expected to change and we wanted to remain flexible. We got up the funicular a bit after 9:30AM and I misread the map and started with the Mont Blanc run which returned us to Arc 1600.
Early morning snow was bulletproof below about 1800, a likely rain/snow line during the storm. However we had this view of rock climbers near the Mont Blanc chair.
I knew we needed to do our morning skiing at higher elevation, so we used the Arpette chair to get there. Overview of upper terrain from top of Arpette:
Closer view from Arc 2000 base at center left to Aiguille Rouge upper right at 10,580 feet:
We skied the partially mogulled Bois de l’ours to the Marmottes lift. View from Marmottes past Arc 1950 to Mont Blanc.
Les Arcs probably has the closest Mont Blanc view of the big Tarantaise ski complexes, so Liz took a zoom pic.
We next rode the Varet gondola, which has a few ungroomed ski routes under its north face.
The area directly under the gondola had slid during the recent storm.
There are some longer off piste lines coming down from the Aiguille Rouge.
The Aiguille Rouge tram was not running so we skied the Arondelieres piste from the gondola.
The tram cable and stations are in the background.
We tried the Plagnettes chair.
I tested the mellow ungroomed near the lift, which was decent where skier packed.
The pistes up here were very busy.
This was not a surprise since it was all packed powder vs. the spring conditions lower down.
We moved to the more outlying Grand Col lift.
We sampled some off piste here too.
Coming down from Grand Col we noticed around noon that the tram was still not running. It was quite warm so I suspected the lower runs might have softened and perhaps would not be too busy. Looking down the upper section of the long TransArc gondola:
This was a good call. We had smooth groomer corn to Arc 1600, then to Villandry and finally to Peisey, where the connector tram crosses a gorge to La Plagne.
At the top of the 2300 lift we took a selfie with these peaks.
Closeup view:
The mini-Matterhorn peak is 10,200 foot Aiguille de l’Aliet.
Skiing to Derby Liz is about to punch the hanging hand with Mont Blanc in background.
After one more corn run to Arc 1600 we rode the TransArc gondola back up to the alpine. We skied by a frozen pond where some people were making “crop circle” designs.
On the way to the Varet gondola:
The tram had finally opened and to no surprise it had a 20+ minute line. Logo in waiting area:
As with most high Alps trams, there’s a viewing platform at the top.
12,398 foot Mont Pourri with glaciers:
With likely just the one day at Les Arcs, I was relieved to see that tram open so we could ski Fraser’s favorite piste in the Alps.
The initial drop had some switchbacks which you could cut and ski some ungroomed packed powder. Here the piste opens up more.
There’s a good view NW of off piste routes descending to the Varet gondola.
We saw a couple of guided groups in here when riding the gondola.
Below Lanchettes the piste transitioned to spring conditions. The first red section below the Droset chair looked like wet clumpy moguls so we skied the blue catwalk around that. The lowest red section paralleling Plan des Violettes was more smoothed out and skied well despite the low elevation and being east facing at 4PM. View across the Isere valley to Le Rosiere:
We reached the Plan des Violettes lift having skied 5,925 vertical feet from the top of Aiguille Rouge. This nosed out the 5,575 vertical run from the top of the Pitztal Glacier to Mittelberg as our longest continuous vertical run of this trip.
Riding Droset back out we get a good view of Arc 2000 and Arc 1950 and the ski terrain to the west.
We skied through those resorts to the Comborciere lift, and finally skied Arolla back to Arc 1600 and the top of the funicular, arriving at 5:02PM. Descending the funicular:
This was another day to trying to cover as much ground as possible while the ski conditions were good. Total vertical was 29,800.
