Snowboarding / Skiing

Curran

Just wondering what resorts people have been to and how you rate them

Personally ive only been to Pas de la Casa, Andorra - but am going twice this year so my opinion will be stronger come March

I thought Pas de la Casa was pretty good - with modern ski lifts and a nice balance of runs, from beginner to the more experienced - it worked well for myself and my friends because half the group were beginners and some had been before, although i hear its boring for the very experienced. Slopes were fairly hard and compacted but werent bad early in the day after they had been groomed.
As for the Aprés Ski - it was fairly good and so was the nite life.
There was no night skiing or snowmobiling

Pretty enjoyable for everyone involved, even after a few injuries were incurred.

Going to Sauze d'Oulx, Italy next week and Kaprun, Austria at the end of Feb so maybe my opinion on Pas will have changed !!!
What are other peoples experiences in Pas and other resorts??

penexpers

Arinsal : Pretty poor resort. Very small and crowded. Huge queues at lifts. They are building more hotels without new slopes/lifts so this is bad news.

Morzine : My favourite one, I think. It's a small town about 1000m above sea level. It feels alot more homely than alot of the purpose built resorts which is nice. It's easy to get to the higher resorts of Avoriaz/Les Gets and it's all linked into the huge Portes de Soleil ski area which has 650km of runs. There are some really great beginner runs from Avoriaz down into Morzine and there's a good mixture of runs for the more advanced skiier. One novelty is you can ski into Switzerland.

Les Menuires : Part of the 3 Valleys which again has 650km of runs and is linked in with Courcheval. This resort is the most beginner friendly of the ones I have been to. Huge choice of runs again, but the runs into Morzine were very suited to beginners. Resort was a bit quiet at night.

Les Arcs : The most beginner unfriendly one though it caters from advanced skiiers quite well. For years, there wasn't a suitable run for a beginner all the way back to the resort but this has changed in recent years. Not a huge skiing area compared to the other French resorts. Resort was a bit quiet again at night.

robinph

I went to Borovets in Bulgaria last year which whilst it's clearly quite different from other European resorts but did make a pleasant change. There wasn't a huge number of runs though but enough to keep the wide range of people in our group amused for the week. They also had night skiing apparently and snowmobiling which we did do and was good fun.

There was a very scary green run there though that was marked on the map but had only been partially built so should have been closed off completely, but looked to be about the only way down from one section to join up with the main part of the resort without taking the gondola or a walk from the bottom of another run which we were not in the mood for that day. The next time we took the red's back down from that part of the hill though and it was much easier.

As for Pas de la Casa, if your able you should try and head over towards Soldeu/ El Tarter direction, first thing in the morning to avoid the queue for the one lift in Grau Rouig section, and you'll probably then find a better selection of runs. It's also a lot less crowded in between Soldeu and Grau Rouig especially earlier in the week before most people discover that area or any of the ski school groups have been taken that far from their starting point.

SideshowBob

Tignes: we stayed in Tignes Les Brevieres, the lowest village in the resort. Great runs altho not the best for beginners. Some of the blues would be reds in other resorts. But the runs are amazing and it's got plenty of variation in terms of terrain, especially as it's linked to Val d'Isere.

Meribel: Stayed in Mottaret in Meribel Valley last year, part of the 3 Valleys resort. Great resort altho nightlife is probably better in Meribel itself. Great skiing, amazing lift system and a huge variety of terrain with 650km of piste. Mottaret itself isn't really beginner friendly but there is a handy green run down to Meribel where there are plenty of beginner options. Runs into Meribel get incredibly icy in the evening, got caught out there a few times. Courchevel is amazing, spent some time over there. To me, the pistes in Courchevel where huge, very wide, plenty of room. Spent a day in Val Theron as well, again some great runs but wasn't there long enough to cover much of it.

Heading to Avoriaz on Sat, cannot wait!!! Nice to hear you thought Morzine was cool Penexpers. Roll on the weekend...

Splinter

Thank god for this thread I'm off to Pas on sunday - I hear it hasnt been snowing there though...any confirmation/comments on this?

robinph

splinter wrote:

Thank god for this thread I'm off to Pas on sunday - I hear it hasnt been snowing there though...any confirmation/comments on this?

No snow for the next couple of days according to here.
21/28 lifts open in the Pas section today apparently, but only 20cm of snow on the upper slopes I saw on another site. :eek:

They have loads of snow cannons about though so as long as the temp drops bellow freezing they should be able to get some more white stuff down for you, even if mother nature won't oblige with the precipitation.

Splinter

god i hope so. finally get the holiday together, everyyear something happens. was close last year and then boss said i could get time off cause he was going away then he let me go for "cutbacks" the day he got back...pr!ck... yeah I saw 20cm on upper and 10cm on lower on www.skiclub.co.uk