Arc 2000 trip report (long)

"Sue" wrote in message
...

Why are there so many totally flat runs in Les Arcs and La Plagne?
Are they normally icy? Did the old-style faster skis go better on them
than modern gear?
Hurrying to get back across the Vanoise Express, we had to take our skis
off and walk for about half a mile; only the most athletic skiers could
skate that far, and nobody was sliding.


I guess when they built the mountains they didn't plan it very well :-)

My old skiis went faster and were more stable but I have more fun on the new
ones.

Big problem for skiis when its too cold, the way a ski glides depends on the
base being waxed and it creating a microfilm of water due to the friction
effect. The wax I believe helps the snow melt and stop the ski being
suctioned to the snow. When its cold the ski freezes to the snow and doesn't
glide like normal, only at fast speeds does it really work.

Paul

In message , Brian McIlwrath
writes
Sammy wrote:
: Thanks!
: Is 1950 any better?

Not been there! HOWEVER 1950 got a bad writeup in a newspaper article I read
recently....allegedly a building site, not finished, nothing works etc.
I await any comments from anyone who has really tried it!

Arc 1950 has some blocks built and occupied, others abandoned for the
winter. There are four cranes standing idle - we wondered if they
turned their backs to the wind?
It's even smaller than Arc 2000, but conventionally laid out with shops
on car-free streets and access by ski piste. Probably it'll become the
effective centre for both. It's easy to move between the two estates by
a little gondola provided for the purpose.
Arc 1950 also has the advantage of being on a slope, so you can ski in
and out of it.

Another thing I forgot to moan about is the piste map: normal ones
disintegrate when snowed on, but the Les Arcs map doesn't require this.
Even when kept in the chalet they fell apart in 3-4 days.

--
Sue ];(

In message , PG
writes

No wet snow where we live in Bourg St Maurice on that day!

There was at the station about 07:00 - you couldn't have taken a photo,
it was dark.

This photo
taken the following morning http://tinyurl.com/5oh34 - it's barely risen
above freezing for several weeks now.

You were there the day of the avalanche fatality, off piste the other
side of the Lanchettes lift at 2000. See this thread on snowHeads.

http://tinyurl.com/46qb6

The reports aren't dated - I had the impression that chap was killed on
Tuesday, when I was in La Plagne.

Should I mention that:
a) I have absolutely zero faith in other people's avalanche awareness,
and
b) I don't ski steep couloirs, I'm not good enough.
So I reckon I'm almost as safe in the Alps as under my own bridge!

The story about the couple who got lost and avalanched in poor
visibility really is scary though, I can almost imagine that happening
to me.

Conditions were very bad, the resort was really struggling to make
things safe. I had the impression that pistebashing took a bit of a back
seat for a couple of days, they were finding it almost impossible to
cope with the combination of up to a metre of fresh snow, strong winds,
and very low temps.

Pistebashers look rugged, but they're really a bunch of expensive prima
donnas, waiting for the right conditions to dance.
Seriously, if it's not safe for skiers to go up the mountain, it's
obviously not safe for pistebashers, lift operators, restaurateurs and
the rest.


In the 2000 bowl there are a few flat areas to traverse to get from one
part to another, but if you know where to go, which lifts to use, you
can avoid them. Les Arcs really doesn't have that many flat runs - let
me know if you come again and I'll show you just how challenging it can
be! I can't think of anywhere you have to walk - or skate - to get to
the Vanoise! That said you were there in very low temps, and if you had
the wrong wax (or no wax) on your skis, you would have been in trouble.
In temps of -20°C it can act like glue on unprepared equipment.


On a couple of late evenings it was cold enough that we had to skate
down slopes you'd normally be able to ski.

The rest of the time, the flat sections were awfully long and awfully
flat, and if I'd got the wrong wax so had everyone else. It was
difficult to see how our boarders could've made progress on them,
whatever their condition - if they'd been icy the boarders would've
slipped and fallen as they tried to scoot or waddle.

To get to the Vanoise Express from l'Arpette (the Arcs one) it's all
blue runs with flat sections; that's the only route that starts below
Arc 2000.
To get back to the Vanoise Express from Roche de Mio you can apparently
follow a red run to les Bauches then a blue one from there - but the
blue run only slopes at the very start, most of its length is unskiable.
It's still quicker than the alternative route from les Bauches with two
lifts and the rope tow!

The challenging bits of Arc 2000 were shut all week, but we got lots of
great skiing, you can't have everything.


| so all week people had been slipping and stumbling on the ice as cars
| and vans pushed past them.
| Now, with Saturday's traffic coming (and probably some pressure from
the
| police) they were finally clearing a two-lane width.

I think that's a little harsh. Conditions were taxing to say the least,
and you reach a point sometimes when nature has the last word - you
would have encountered similar difficulties wherever you were over those
few days. I was in Flaine on Tuesday and they were have all kinds of
trouble with the fresh that fell yesterday - they hadn't cleared a lane
through the (compulsory) car park and I was marooned for a while. The
"pedestrian" streets were dangerous as well, it was chaos for a while.

But in Arc 2000 nothing was done between Monday and Friday, though no
more snow had fallen.
In the other developments we visited, the pistes through them had been
bashed, local ski access were in good condition and everything seemed to
be working well by Tuesday.
Arc 2000 couldn't work well as a resort without its roads being cleared,
all it needed was a mechanical digger sooner.


There are several access points to the main buildings, and depending on
where you are there is easy access to the pistes.

In Flaine? A work colleague swears by it, I've not been there myself.

--
Sue ];(

On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:02:57 +0000, Sue wrote:

Arc 1950 has some blocks built and occupied, others abandoned for the
winter. There are four cranes standing idle - we wondered if they
turned their backs to the wind?

I did wonder - they were certainly all aligned the same way.

Another thing I forgot to moan about is the piste map: normal ones
disintegrate when snowed on, but the Les Arcs map doesn't require this.
Even when kept in the chalet they fell apart in 3-4 days.

I was there last week. I agree with pretty much all of your
criticisms.

Why on Earth you have to take stairs to get into a lift is beyond me.
And why you need a lift to get around the village without walking
round the roads or on the pistes at all is very odd. The entire
village appears to have been built on a mound.

Actually, thinking about it, I suspect that they were playing the
numbers game and by building it on the mound, gave it the magic
"2000".

And as for the the piste maps... they rip when first opened! I spent a
merry ten minutes on the piste taping mine back together when it broke
in half.

For all that, we enjoyed the snow that you were dumped on with! We
even had a mid-week top-up too.

I never got round to visiting Arc1950, but the bit that was build
looked pleasant enough. I do wonder though, how many new developments
they can put up before it becomes just too crowded. Unless, that is,
the ski areas are extended to compensate.

--
-Pip

"Pip Luscher" wrote in
message ...
| On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:02:57 +0000, Sue wrote:
|
| Why on Earth you have to take stairs to get into a lift is beyond me.
| And why you need a lift to get around the village without walking
| round the roads or on the pistes at all is very odd. The entire
| village appears to have been built on a mound.
|
| Actually, thinking about it, I suspect that they were playing the
| numbers game and by building it on the mound, gave it the magic
| "2000".

Er - no.

| I never got round to visiting Arc1950, but the bit that was build
| looked pleasant enough. I do wonder though, how many new developments
| they can put up before it becomes just too crowded. Unless, that is,
| the ski areas are extended to compensate.

Crowded? If you wre there last week it was virtually empty. With 420 kms
of piste, I suspect we'll survive for a while yet.

Pete - SNOWeSCAPE Bourg St Maurice Les Arcs
http://bsm.alpesprovence.net

Pip Luscher wrote:
On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:02:57 +0000, Sue wrote:


Arc 1950 has some blocks built and occupied, others abandoned for the
winter. There are four cranes standing idle - we wondered if they
turned their backs to the wind?


I did wonder - they were certainly all aligned the same way.


Another thing I forgot to moan about is the piste map: normal ones
disintegrate when snowed on, but the Les Arcs map doesn't require this.
Even when kept in the chalet they fell apart in 3-4 days.


I was there last week. I agree with pretty much all of your
criticisms.

Why on Earth you have to take stairs to get into a lift is beyond me.
And why you need a lift to get around the village without walking
round the roads or on the pistes at all is very odd. The entire
village appears to have been built on a mound.

Actually, thinking about it, I suspect that they were playing the
numbers game and by building it on the mound, gave it the magic
"2000".

And as for the the piste maps... they rip when first opened! I spent a
merry ten minutes on the piste taping mine back together when it broke
in half.

For all that, we enjoyed the snow that you were dumped on with! We
even had a mid-week top-up too.

I never got round to visiting Arc1950, but the bit that was build
looked pleasant enough. I do wonder though, how many new developments
they can put up before it becomes just too crowded. Unless, that is,
the ski areas are extended to compensate.


You are right about worrying about the devlopment of beds in the resort
without a development of the skiing infrastructure.

I have been to St.Anton twice and that is definately a resort with too
many beds and insufficient lifts and pistes. This season we went to Les
Arcs over the Christmas week and then to St. Anton for the first week in
January and the contrast was staggering. In Les Arcs one wait for 5
minutes first thing in the morning and we were grumbling about lift
queues. In St. Anton, if we got away with only 3 half hour waits a day
we thought we were in bliss.

Almost every year Les Arcs installs a new lift or two, (but they do need
to develop some new ski areas - any suggestions where?). In St. Anton
there appears little new over the last 4 years.

John

On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:50:42 +0100, "PG"
wrote:


"Pip Luscher" wrote in
message ...
| On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:02:57 +0000, Sue wrote:
|
| Why on Earth you have to take stairs to get into a lift is beyond me.
| And why you need a lift to get around the village without walking
| round the roads or on the pistes at all is very odd. The entire
| village appears to have been built on a mound.
|
| Actually, thinking about it, I suspect that they were playing the
| numbers game and by building it on the mound, gave it the magic
| "2000".

Er - no.

Fair enough, it was just a thought. That was a pretty definite answer
- care to elucidate?

As for crowds, I suppose that as a local you get to see the full
horror of the bank holiday rush, so it would seem "virtually empty" at
the time I went. As one who intensely dislikes crowds, I'd just like
it to stay that way!

Don't get me wrong, I had a great week's skiing on nicely groomed
pistes, it's just that the village itself, and its location, left me
completely underwhelmed.

--
-Pip

"Pip Luscher" wrote in
message ...
| On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:50:42 +0100, "PG"
| wrote:
|
|
| "Pip Luscher" wrote in
| message ...
| | On Wed, 2 Feb 2005 20:02:57 +0000, Sue
wrote:
| |
| | Why on Earth you have to take stairs to get into a lift is beyond
me.
| | And why you need a lift to get around the village without walking
| | round the roads or on the pistes at all is very odd. The entire
| | village appears to have been built on a mound.
| |
| | Actually, thinking about it, I suspect that they were playing the
| | numbers game and by building it on the mound, gave it the magic
| | "2000".
|
| Er - no.
|
| Fair enough, it was just a thought. That was a pretty definite answer
| - care to elucidate?

Resort villages are positioned for a number of reasons - planning
permission, the terrain, accessibility, invulnerability (inasfar as this
is possible) to avalanche... but not because they wanted to give it a
specific name. I know of one resort in the southern Alps that is
commonly known as Céüse 2000 but not because it is positioned at 2000 -
it just happens to be the altitude at which the highest run starts!

|
| As for crowds, I suppose that as a local you get to see the full
| horror of the bank holiday rush, so it would seem "virtually empty" at
| the time I went. As one who intensely dislikes crowds, I'd just like
| it to stay that way!
|
| Don't get me wrong, I had a great week's skiing on nicely groomed
| pistes, it's just that the village itself, and its location, left me
| completely underwhelmed.

I skied all the first week of Jan. I don't think I found a queue
anywhere. The older section of 2000 is pretty ugly, although the new MGM
constructions that form part of the same village are very pleasant and
quite well designed. Arc 2000 is in the centre of a bowl, surrounded by
some beautiful views. I really can't see why the location is not to your
liking.

Pete

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 10:36:06 +0100, "PG"
wrote:

I skied all the first week of Jan. I don't think I found a queue
anywhere. The older section of 2000 is pretty ugly, although the new MGM
constructions that form part of the same village are very pleasant and
quite well designed.

Yes, I think I must have stayed in one of the newer ones: Chalet
Altitude. Very pleasant, if slightly quirky, design!

Arc 2000 is in the centre of a bowl, surrounded by
some beautiful views. I really can't see why the location is not to your

Pretty much any part of the lower bowl would give the same fine views.
Arc 1950 appears much better placed: it clearly must be
avalance-safe; less of a climb up the road; (aparently) flatter piece
of ground for construction, yet has slopes down to it and from it for
true ski-out ski-in convenience; it's lower into the tree-line, so the
"home runs" could've been tree-lined. All in all it seems to have a
superior location.

Perhaps there were other issues as you say, and hindsight is a
wonderful thing.

My original comment about numbers came from something I read, where
/apparently/ there was a certain amount of rivalry and exaggeration
about village heights. The article claimed that no part of (the
original, I assume) Courchevel 1850, for example, reaches 1850 metres
in altitude.

--
-Pip

In message , PG
writes

| Don't get me wrong, I had a great week's skiing on nicely groomed
| pistes, it's just that the village itself, and its location, left me
| completely underwhelmed.

I skied all the first week of Jan. I don't think I found a queue
anywhere. The older section of 2000 is pretty ugly, although the new MGM
constructions that form part of the same village are very pleasant and
quite well designed. Arc 2000 is in the centre of a bowl, surrounded by
some beautiful views. I really can't see why the location is not to your
liking.


You've never used it as a base, have you?

I'm guessing you've generally approached it from the black runs down the
bowl, but those were closed all week; we only approached it from above
once, by the blue run from the Droset lift - and then we weren't ready
to finish so we had to do the walk anyway, to get to another lift.

Enjoy 2000's skiing, stay in one of the other blocks.

--
Sue ];(