Les Sept Laux & Belledonne ?

Does anyone have any skiing experiences/knowledge of the resorts east of
Grenoble in the Belledonne range.

I am thinking of Les Sept Laux, Allevard and Chamrousse. Have you tried
them... Ace maybe ?

Any info much appreciated.

All the best,

Edi

PS: Not long till the season starts !

On Tue, 4 Jul 2006 23:12:23 +0100, "Edi"
wrote:

Does anyone have any skiing experiences/knowledge of the resorts east of
Grenoble in the Belledonne range.

I am thinking of Les Sept Laux, Allevard and Chamrousse. Have you tried
them... Ace maybe ?

Sorry, no. Skifrance.fr has some details, as I imagine you've already
found, but I've never skied the belledonne area at all.

Another one for the list ;-)
--
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.

Edi wrote:
Does anyone have any skiing experiences/knowledge of the resorts east of
Grenoble in the Belledonne range.

I am thinking of Les Sept Laux, Allevard and Chamrousse. Have you tried
them... Ace maybe ?

All three resorts thrive mostly on day skiers from nearby Grenoble (and
to a lesser extent Lyon, where I'm based).

Les Sept Laux is one of my favourite day trip destinations (it's
probably the closest decent resort to Lyon), though I'm not sure I'd
want to stay for a full week. Plenty of blues and reds for intermediate
skiers, and also a few more challenging blacks and unpisted runs. The
resort has invested heavily in recent years and the lift system is
pretty good. The weather can be a problem - the blacks at the top of the
resort are often closed by high winds, and the Belledonne range seems to
suffer from numerous "sea of clouds" days with blue sky and sun above
1800/2000 m but very poor visibility on the runs down to Pipay and
Prapoutel. As far as I know there's nothing but self-catering
accommodation - not a hotel in sight in Prapoutel, and I don't think
there are any in Pipay or Le Pleynet either.

I've only skied Chamrousse a couple of times - pleasant enough for a
day, and perhaps less prone to valley cloud problems. There's a highish
proportion of cross-country skiers.

Le Collet d'Allevard is small - never skied there.


John.

--
-- Over 3000 webcams from ski resorts around the world - www.snoweye.com
-- Translate your technical documents and web pages - www.tradoc.fr

Edi wrote:
Does anyone have any skiing experiences/knowledge of the resorts east of
Grenoble in the Belledonne range.

I am thinking of Les Sept Laux, Allevard and Chamrousse. Have you tried
them... Ace maybe ?

Any info much appreciated.

All the best,

Edi

PS: Not long till the season starts !


We went out for a weekend to Les Sept Laux last March. It is very close
to Lyon airport and quite easy to get to. Grenoble airport is even
closer. It helped having a friend living in Goncelin about 25 minutes
drive away. On the Sunday we managed to ski upto 12:30 drive to his
house for lunch and catch the 15:40 flight home. It is my number one
choice for a weekend break.

During the 2 days we were there much of the resort was closed due to
avalanche risk (the road to Val D’Isere was closed completely) and the
skiing limited. What there was, was good and interesting. Ian, my friend
reports that the resort often has more snow than the higher neighbouring
resorts. He likes the skiing in Les 7 Laux and rates the resort highly.
To make me jealous he points out that if there is a good dump of powder
mid week his girlfriend will take half a day of work and just go skiing
on empty pistes.

There is some but not much near piste accommodation (see
http://www.franceskiholiday.com/Loca...=Les+Sept+Laux
or similar). It is largely a day trip resort from nearby Grenoble. As a
consequence the skiers are usually very good and the large car parks
fill up very quickly at weekends. When we were there the queue in the
ski hire shop was very long and slow moving. It took over a hour to get
kitted up and the resort was fairly empty. I suggest bringing your own
equipment. However, I am told it can be very quite during the week. It
may be better to hire a car, stay in the valley and drive up as required

I am amazed that such a large, good quality resort is almost unknown in
the UK. From my limited North American experience it would rated as a
large resort with an abundance of restaurants (there aren’t many) and
accommodation.

More information can be found at
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wik.../Les-Sept-Laux and of
course http://www.les7laux.com.

Hope this helps.

John

"Ace" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 4 Jul 2006 23:12:23 +0100, "Edi"
wrote:

Does anyone have any skiing experiences/knowledge of the resorts east of
Grenoble in the Belledonne range.

I am thinking of Les Sept Laux, Allevard and Chamrousse. Have you tried
them... Ace maybe ?

Sorry, no. Skifrance.fr has some details, as I imagine you've already
found, but I've never skied the belledonne area at all.

Another one for the list ;-)
--
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.

Thanks Ace anyway... the list is indeed huge for the French Alps ! I did
find the skifrance stuff and Piste Hors as well.

We did a few days touring at Whitsun, dropping down from Geneva to Grenoble
and into Italy via Val Cenis. We took the opportunity to look at some ski
areas off season, taking in many of the smaller places like La Grande
Terche, Bellevaux, Morrillon, Samoens, Crest Voland, Notre-Dame de
Bellecombe ending up at Allevard and Les Sept Laux. A nice tour with some
lovely Logis de France hotels. We even had quite a bit of snow as low as
1000m

All the best,

Edi

" " wrote in
message ...
Edi wrote:
Does anyone have any skiing experiences/knowledge of the resorts east of
Grenoble in the Belledonne range.

I am thinking of Les Sept Laux, Allevard and Chamrousse. Have you tried
them... Ace maybe ?

Any info much appreciated.

All the best,

Edi

PS: Not long till the season starts !


We went out for a weekend to Les Sept Laux last March. It is very close
to Lyon airport and quite easy to get to. Grenoble airport is even
closer. It helped having a friend living in Goncelin about 25 minutes
drive away. On the Sunday we managed to ski upto 12:30 drive to his
house for lunch and catch the 15:40 flight home. It is my number one
choice for a weekend break.

During the 2 days we were there much of the resort was closed due to
avalanche risk (the road to Val D’Isere was closed completely) and the
skiing limited. What there was, was good and interesting. Ian, my friend
reports that the resort often has more snow than the higher neighbouring
resorts. He likes the skiing in Les 7 Laux and rates the resort highly.
To make me jealous he points out that if there is a good dump of powder
mid week his girlfriend will take half a day of work and just go skiing
on empty pistes.

There is some but not much near piste accommodation (see

http://www.franceskiholiday.com/Loca...ation%5B%5D=94
&PM2=Les+Sept+Laux
or similar). It is largely a day trip resort from nearby Grenoble. As a
consequence the skiers are usually very good and the large car parks
fill up very quickly at weekends. When we were there the queue in the
ski hire shop was very long and slow moving. It took over a hour to get
kitted up and the resort was fairly empty. I suggest bringing your own
equipment. However, I am told it can be very quite during the week. It
may be better to hire a car, stay in the valley and drive up as required

I am amazed that such a large, good quality resort is almost unknown in
the UK. From my limited North American experience it would rated as a
large resort with an abundance of restaurants (there aren’t many) and
accommodation.

More information can be found at
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wik.../Les-Sept-Laux and of
course http://www.les7laux.com.

Hope this helps.

John

Great info John. Thanks for taking the time to record the detail. I was
curious to know what it was like in winter.

We had a look at the area after the end of the ski season. A car would be
good, some of the villages around were very quaint (not in an Alpine sense,
but more south of France style) Theys, Laval, Les Adrets. The town of
Allevard was attractive too.

If Ian or his girlfriend have any other stories about it I would like to
hear them, early late season conditions, beginners stuff ?

All the best,

Edi

John Wilcock a écrit :
The
resort has invested heavily in recent years and the lift system is
pretty good.

indeed: in the past 5 years: one 6-seats high-speed chairlift in
Prapoutel, another high-speed lift with a mix of 6-seat chairs and
8-seat cabins in Pipay, and this summer they replace an old 3-seats
chairlift by a 4-seats in Pleynet.

Note that even with this good equipment this resort can be very crowded
on weekends in Februrary.