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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 |
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
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) |
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
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. |
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
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) |
#6
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy):The Italian side
"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 |
#7
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
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 ;-) |
#8
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
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 |
#9
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
"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 |
#10
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La Rosiere (France) / La Thuile (Italy): my opinions
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 |
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