Alp D'Huez report

When: Last week of Jan '05

+
None or fast moving queues
Ski in/out at VVF, La Bergers
The dual cable Marmottes3 deposits you at 3060m in most weather and in a
blizzard you straightline Herpie into the teeth of the storm and take the
90° onto the narrow piste that joins Sarenne, hoping you got it right.
That's a good buzz.
Tunnel is a good run but nothing like as steep as I was expecting judging
previous reports. Why didn't they cut the actual tunnel at a more sporting
angle?
The unpisted La Foret stays suprisingly worthwhile long after the last snow.
La Fare is a good downhill blast.
Auris area looked interesting terrain but only really explored it on the
last day.
Extremely pleasant locals. Excellent restaurants - recommend walking to
bottom left of D'Huez centre (SW?) - try La Crémaillère
All english ski tutition is rumoured.
I saw light at the end of the off-piste tunnel here!
Looks to be some excellent off-piste.

-
**** poor ability of resort to cope with bad weather
single cable Pic Blanc lift closes at the mere whisper of bad weather.
new dual cable lift open, but its older, lower connection is often broken.
Blacks/Other pistes are in very separate areas of the resort making mixed
ability skiing less than sociable, which may at least provide some solid
excuses...
Of the typical long, round the back of a resort blacks, Sarene is the least
inspiring, albeit the Pic Blanc served upper section being great with an
itinerary feel to it. The final 6km of poleing is okay for informing you
where your forgotten triceps lurk.
Couldn't find hide nor hair of Roche Melon in Vaujany.
Auris area terrain is confusing and the piste map is a sod to follow; never
did find La Fuma, albeit in the cloud.
Very few detachable chairs, I think I counted 2.
Poor hire shops for ski testing.

Not a bad resort, but the only one so far I've been to in France where I
think once is enough, most of the rest of the 7 strong group agreed.

--
Mike W

Just back as well.

Snow pretty good on the pistes but they're now having to look after it a
lot. Hot spring weather has been melting a lot of what fell a couple of
weeks ago, lots of rocks around and bare patches by the end of the week.
They patch the wholes overnight but they're back again by the afternoon.

I'll second the slow lift comments, only 3 real good fast quads and only
one of those, at Villard Reculas, takes you up, the others Alpauris and
Auris go down then up or up then down. I suggested that we take a drag
instead of a quad and got a "yeah" response from my group! The gondolas
and cable cars are okay but all that faffing about taking skis / board off
climbing up and down, give me a well placed fast quad (or larger) anytime.

Not a clue in sight about being able to run lift queues, after canada I'd
forgotton how bad france can be! Fortunately it was pretty quiet but
standing in a queue for 10 mins as a single watching chair after chair
going up with 2 or 3 people on them and not having a single line
available!!!

Quite a lot of the upper black / red pistes were shut limiting the amount
of advanced skiing available. La Fuma was a treat, very steap mougle field
that was soft enough to be a lot of fun with plenty of variations off
piste around there through the trees. Suprisingly nice given the low
altitude. Nice enough that we didn't mind the slow 2 man lift back.

Roche Melon wasn't marked but we went offpiste trying to find it. I think
what we found was a red run that wasn't on the pistemap but was on a
pistemap in the Vaujany cable car station. Looking on that map gave me a
better idea where it should have been.

There was another black in Oz marked on the map but not at all visible on
the hill.

Signal and Signal de l'Homme were the best bits for me but I doubt I'll be
back again. Nice resort for the beginners / intermediates