La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions

Hi,

I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11 March
2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).

Overall a good holiday. Lots of quality snow. A number of
reservations though. Maybe my thoughts will help you decide if this is
the right area for your ski holiday.

Skiing La Rosiere. Lots of wide blues on the area immediately in
front of the first main chair lift. Most reds to the right as you face
the ski domain. You need to get up high to drop off to the right.
There is not really much difference in character between all these
parallel reds on the right-hand side of La Rosiere. A result of this
"separation" of the domain into a blue and a red area is that a mixed
ability group will split for the day. It would be ideal if a few runs
could offer blue and red alternatives, but that probably would cut
down on the number of pistes – and that's a magic number for a resort
to attract skiers.

Standard of blues and reds La Rosiere. I am an improving intermediate
skier. I am interested in skiing in a controlled way rather than
charging down the mountain (it's an age thing). At Los Rosiere, apart
from the big area at the front of the mountain, too many of the runs
marked as blue pistes are really narrow, linking roads with too many
sections that go uphill and require the skier who has not built a head
of steam to go waddling up the hill before pushing off again.

I feel that red pistes should be reasonably steep, and have varying
"tilt" across the piste as well as down the hill and possess some
bends. The reds at La Rosiere are steep enough but too straight.

Entrance and exits to lifts. Most lifts have a slight uphill incline
at the entrance - which slows people down, good stuff. But they then
go and put an uphill section at the lift exits, leading to mini
pile-ups because Tracy has stopped 2 meters from the "drop point"
waiting for her 17 mates to come up before descending the slope. (For
Tracy and mates read anyone who complains when something does not
happen exactly the way he / she / it wants. Tracy is a gender-neutral
name in this situation).
Please Monsieur TeleSki du Rosiere, just "re-cut" those exits and
"flatten" them to get people away from those trying to get off the
drag / chair lifts.

Standard of cross-country. This seems fairly extensive and travels
through a variety of locations - seemingly more generous than the
provision at 3V. I just have this image if you are really fit and into
cross-country you travel to the edge of the Arctic Circle to indulge.

Lift queues at La Rosiere. Maximum 10 minutes at the start of the day
on the first chair lift. Apart from that, there were lift-queues of
between 3 minutes to zero for most of the days. The pleasures of going
post-Feb holidays.

ESF Tuition. I could only get one hour's private lesson at lunchtime
because the teachers are booked the rest of the day with groups.
However, the guy who took me, pointed out all the fundamental mistakes
I was making (Knee bends, ski tilting etc. etc.) - so I went back to
blues for a couple of hours each day, and at the end of the stay I was
much more under control on the reds. Money well spent.

Skiing La Thuile. I preferred this to La Rosiere. The reds are
twistier in La Thuile than La Rosiere and "tilt" across the slope as
well as down the direction of the route. The descent into La Thuile
from the mountain is a couple of lovely reds down through the trees -
lots of variety on these descents. Also there are a couple of
challenging blacks down to the base. Then, once down the bottom, a
quick tele-cabin back into the main area. The ski area above La Thuile
is "visually compact". That is, there isn't the big flat valley below
the ski area as at Bourg St. Maurice on the La Ros side. As a result,
I felt "closer" to the mountains on the La T side. A matter of taste
really.

Ski connection between La Rosiere and La Thuile. This is a long, slow
drag lift. Parts of the drag (apt word) are downhill, making it
difficult to control the drag. This area between the France and Italy
main resorts is quite pleasant and there is an area opposite the main
pistes that looks ripe for developing to swallow all these new
visitors staying in the MGM apartments. A tip when travelling between
France and Italy; check the wind speed before you make the "crossing".
Invest in some good thermals. A wind speed of 40 km/h high on the
French side will cool you down. Note, the visibility can be say 20
meters on the French side due to snow and "low cloud" and you can be
skiing under almost clear, blue sky on the Italian side, making the
"crossing trip" worth while.

Travel to resort. On the French side, the standard 3-hour bus ride
from Geneva. The RETURN bus tickets are easy to buy at Geneva airport.
If you return from resort early in the day, and have not bought a
return bus ticket, you may well find the bus ticket office is not open
and you will wait to buy a ticket (and probably miss your plane as
well).
On the Italian side, I am told you can drive from Turin airport to La
T in 90 minutes if no traffic jams.

EasyJet. Gleaming new A319 Airbus from Gatwick. Left bang on time
both ways. Goodness, how those EJ staff deal with the rudeness and
stupidity of most of the passengers is beyond me. Tracy and her 17
mates again.

Non-ski facilities in La Ros. It looks like a lot of money is being
pumped in here. There is quite a bit of chalet style accommodation
that has been financed by MGM. The construction is solid concrete
frames faced with stone on the ground floor and wooden,
"chalet-profile" upper floors. I didn't take the time to pretend to be
a buyer and nose around the complex but it looks like this is a
quality build. At times the La Ros resort looks a bit like a Disney
interpretation of an alpine resort, but I prefer it to the French
1960's love affair with weather-stained concrete and right angles. The
shops are also built to this chalet / stone / wood style. In the
resort there is the usual glut of ski hire locations - I recommend
Interski in the centre. There is a useful sized supermarket (8 to 8),
some bakeries and a great, daily "local specialities" street market.
The car parking in the centre of the resort seems very limited so this
could be a restriction if you intend to drive in daily.


Impact of this new MGM development. With all the new beds, La Ros
will need to speed up the chair-lifts and increase capacity on each
chair otherwise there will be queues on to the pistes that will never
disappear till June.

Sustaining the waistline during the day. La Thuile scores for me. The
utilitarian "Self Service" concrete box at the top of the gondola
serves a good variety of cold meat starters, soups, pasta, beans,
salads, two cooked meats, cheeses, wine, beer etc. etc. every lunch
time. This restaurant is easily accessible. The La Rosiere mountain
offerings seem pokey, limited in range and expensive in comparison.

Sources of information. "Where to Ski and SnowBoard" ISBN
0-9536371-5-8 is thorough, well-organised and was pretty accurate
about La Ros and La T. Geneva Airport Web site must come closest to
the award for the worst-looking, clumsiest to navigate,
information-free web site. Treat yourself, take a look

http://www.gva.ch/en/default.htm

If you can work out the circular links and the confusing references to
AlpSki and Altibus and AutoCars Martin look here
http://www.alpski-bus.com/
for the bus / coach timetable from Geneva airport. The bus travel to
resort is not as primitive as it sounds and is no worse than getting a
tour-organised bus. More reliable actually as the bus does not wait
for Tracy and her 17 mates who are doing a spot of shopping before
getting on the bus.

Accommodation in Bourg-St-Maurice. I was told by a taxi driver that if
you want to use Bourg-St-Maurice as your base to explore the
Tarentaise, then you will need to book the previous autumn. Note, if
you stay in BSM to get variety of skiing, you will pay a much higher
daily rate for you ski pass and you will need to be driving quite
early in the day to access the resort and queue for the ski pass. Is
it really worth it?

I stayed in a really homely, comfortable, clean hotel about 10 minutes
drive from the resort. The food at the hotel was really good and the
menu was significantly different every day.
http://www.hotel-belvedere-fr.com/hotel_eng.htm
Staying here only made sense as the owner operates a daily shuttle to
La Ros at 9am and picks up at 16:45. This is a bit inflexible but I
found fitted with what I wanted to do. As La Ros has no great
night-life this arrangement is no great restriction. Taking taxis from
the hotel at other times is expensive. The alternative is to drive to
the hotel and use your car to travel to and from La Ros.

Who would enjoy this resort (La R) the most? My feeling is that
beginners, families who don't need alcohol driven nightlife and
intermediate skier to just beyond my standard of skiing, will find
enough to keep them occupied for the week. From what I could see,
there are too few bars to keep the snow-train Brits entertained - but
maybe that's a deliberate decision by those developing the area. For
families, some I spoke to rave about Esprit as the holiday organizer.

Would I go back? I would certainly stay in BSM then spend a few days
in each of La Plagne, Val D'Isere, Les Arcs. Or I would take a couple
of cars, go with a group that can "make its own entertainment" of an
evening and stay in La Belvedere Hotel, booking direct to save the
hotel agency surcharge (20%!! for what??, two phone calls).

Regards and good holidays,


Clive

Clive Long,UK wrote:
Hi,
=20
I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11 March
2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).
snip

Excellent read!
--=20
cupra (remove nospam please to mail)

In article ,
says...
Hi,

I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11 March
2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).

I was there between 29.02 and 05.03, and had a blast. The skiing wasn't
as varied as I'd have liked, but we had a right laugh around The Fort,
and the Fontaine Froid, which put me in to physio for an hour.

We travelled with Ski Esprit - Britain's favourite family ski operator.
Not ideal for 8 adults that just wanted to get trolleyed every night.
Fortunately our chalet (across the road from the main chair) was only
inhabited by "growed ups" while we were there.

We had four days of beautiful weather with blue skies and excellent
snow. The last two days brought flat light, low cloud, and lots of
snow.

Bars - we spent most of our time in Le Yeti, where the owner took a bit
of a shine to one of our chaps. That resulted in the odd free drink.
Then we used the bar across the corridor, but I can't remember what it
was called - it was over two floors and had live bands, DJ Fred (if you
only see one DJ this season, make sure it's DJ Fred), and karaoke (bad
karaoke, at that). The English bar across the road was handy for the
England/Ireland game, and Le Chalet provided an opportunity to sample
some superb food on our chalet host's night off.

I didn't make it to La Thuile due to the weather, but a couple of our
party did. They didn't really rate it, but weren't there for long. One
of them was on blades and found the drag lifts a bit of a drag, and the
11km long "number 7" piste was too flat to call a slope in places.

The resort is quite soulless, and clearly isn't finished, though there's
a fair bit of development on the go. The mini-market (8 a huit) had a
limited range and wasn't particularly good value. The list system is
pretty "early 90's" with too many drag lifts. The main chair doesn't
make it to the top of the hill, though it should. It needs updating to
something bigger and faster.

Agreed, the blue runs across the resort are a bit of a mare unless you
start off strong - one of them is directly linked to a black run that
one of our beginners found himself on! He made it in down one piece,
though a little stained. In some cases it's quicker to ski down the
hill to get a (slow) chair lift back up.

The snow park provided a few hours of entertainment, and the Stade de
Slalom was great fun when the ESF people weren't there to warn us off.

Photos at http://photos.kibo.org.uk/gallery.php?d=larosiere2004, and a
short movie at http://movies.kibo.org.uk/LaRosiere.wmv (File Open URL
.... in Windows Media Player) if anyone's interested in someone else's
holiday snaps.

--
Hywel I do not eat quiche
http://kibo.org.uk/
http://kibo.org.uk/mfaq.php

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:08:44 -0000, " cupra"
wrote:

Clive Long,UK wrote:
Hi,

I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11 March
2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).
snip

Excellent read!

Long by name, long by nature...

--
Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom)
Ski Club of Great Britain - http://www.skiclub.co.uk
All opinions expressed are personal and in no way represent those of the Ski Club.

Ace wrote:
On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 20:08:44 -0000, " cupra"
wrote:
=20
Clive Long,UK wrote:
Hi,
=20
I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11
March 2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).
snip
=20
Excellent read!
=20
Long by name, long by nature...

lol!

--=20
cupra (remove nospam please to mail)

"Clive Long,UK" wrote in message
om...
Hi,

I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11 March
2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).

I was in La Thuile for a short time whilst you were in La Rosiere 5th to
10th though only 4 days skiing, thanks very much for your views. Here are my
thoughts from the Italian side of the mountain. ( Shorter as I am a slow
typist.)

We were 5 blokes of mixed ability, the snow was by and large very good with
a modest dump ?20cm on our 1st night.
We skied mainly in La Thuile as the weather looked consistently better on
our side of the mountain.
The lift system in La Thuile was good with no queuing at all. The pistes in
La Thuile faced largely East and some North, the snow was consistently good
by and large packed powder with a little hard pack lower down, in these
conditions the pistes offered few steep challenges for the more experienced
skier but were excellent fast cruises and largley empty.
In our group we has a very experienced German skier whose main ambition
appeared to be avoiding pistes for anything other than quick connections
between lifts. We found excellent off piste areas consistently on the
Italian side mainly in North facing areas. The powder was by and large good
and much of it was of a gradient that we could all enjoy it. The Easterly
facing areas had a harder crust beneath the powder and was less interesting
to ski.
We skied over to La Rosiere on one day, the slopes here are sunnier and
largely South facing. The pistes were also in excellent condition the off
piste was a fair bit heavier but not yet forming spring snow in the areas we
skied, Challenging! ie I fell over a lot.
From the map it looked like there may be decent offpiste North Facing here
off the back, but with quite a walk back so we did not investigate.
The links between the two areas rely on a high cold and slow drag lift and
were shut on one of the days we were there.
The views of Mont Blanc to the North and ? Grand Paradiso south are superb
and well worth gong for.

I am not a great apres skier but my impression was that if you are keen on
partying La Thuile is not the town to be in.
The Ski hire facilities appeared very limited with only two shops.

I would recommend the esort to non partying skiers of most standards though
the better skier will enjoy it mainly when the off piste is in good
condition, probably true for most resorts. If going for more than a few days
you may want to take advantage of the other resorts in the area eg Coumayeur
which share the same lift pass.

Only one more trip till the end of the season unless the snow improves in
Scotland.

Bob

Long by name, long by nature...



I have heard that only a few thousand times before.

However, re-reading the verbage I wrote, I think you are "on the
money" with your assessment.

Anyway, the girls have never complained ;-)

Hywel wrote in message et...
In article ,
says...
Hi,

I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11 March
2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).

cut

The main chair doesn't
make it to the top of the hill, though it should. It needs updating to
something bigger and faster.


Hywel,

I was told by a Swedish guy on the first chair that this "speed &
distance" uprating is going to be done ready for 2004 / 2005.

Clive

"Clive Long,UK" wrote in message
om...
| Hywel wrote in message
et...
| In article ,
| says...
| Hi,
|
| I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11
March
| 2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).
|
| cut
|
| The main chair doesn't
| make it to the top of the hill, though it should. It needs updating
to
| something bigger and faster.
|
|
| Hywel,
|
| I was told by a Swedish guy on the first chair that this "speed &
| distance" uprating is going to be done ready for 2004 / 2005.
|

The lift Co's been taken over by the Val d'Isère company, apparently
some major and much needed investment in new infrastructure is to be
made....

Pete
www.skiclublesarcs.com

In article , =20
says...
=20
"Clive Long,UK" wrote in message
om...
| Hywel wrote in message
et...
| In article ,
| says...
| Hi,
|
| I have made a few jottings during my stay last week, 3 to 11
March
| 2004, at La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy).
|
| cut
|
| The main chair doesn't
| make it to the top of the hill, though it should. It needs updating
to
| something bigger and faster.
|
|
| Hywel,
|
| I was told by a Swedish guy on the first chair that this "speed &
| distance" uprating is going to be done ready for 2004 / 2005.
|
=20
The lift Co's been taken over by the Val d'Is=E8re company, apparently
some major and much needed investment in new infrastructure is to be
made....

That's good news - it's a lot of work, too. If I ever need to take=20
beginners anywhere again, La Rosiere would be a consideration. It's got=20
plenty to keep them busy, and makes for plenty of variety for the rest=20
to improve.

--=20
Hywel I do not eat quiche
http://kibo.org.uk/
http://kibo.org.uk/mfaq.php