Face4Me
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2020
A Bucket List Item Completed
For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to ski in Europe. The opportunity finally presented itself this past September. A friend from work runs a ski club out of New York City. They had a trip to Val Thorens, France planned for late January of 2022. This was a trip the club had booked for March of 2020, but that was before COVID-19. That trip ended up being postponed, and because a number of the original people who had booked the trip had backed out, there were spots available. My friend decided to go on the trip, and so, I booked it too.
With the Omicron surge in full-form, there were a lot of concerns and hurdles to overcome with regard to vaccinations, COVID testing and other red tape. With all that taken care of, it was finally departure day. We had a flight booked from Newark to Dulles, and then from Dulles to Geneva, with a bus ride from there to Val Thorens. We boarded the plane to Dulles … It was time to go … maybe not! Shortly after we boarded the plane, the pilot informed us of a mechanical issue. Long story short … we would not be able to make our connection in Dulles to Geneva.
More than 4 hours later, all 27 of us were rebooked onto other flights into Madrid, Lisbon, Frankfurt & Zurich, and then onto Geneva. We joked that it was like the Amazing Race. I was part of Team Lisbon.
When all was said and done, I checked into my hotel in Val Thorens 28 hours after arriving at Newark Airport … but ... no luggage, skis or ski boots. The good news was that our bags were going to be coming in the next morning on our original flight from Dulles, just one day later.
Our hotel was located in Val Thorens. It was built in 1971 and was one of the original hotels built in this valley. It was located to the right of the top of the carpet lift pictured in the photos below. We were able to walk out of the hotel, put our skis on, and moments later be on a lift going in almost any direction within a 270 degree arc the ski area forms around the resort center.
Due to our travel delay, we lost our first day of skiing, so we spent the day walking around the village, and then went back for a few drinks on the deck outside our hotel, relaxing in the sun and enjoying the beautiful views of the mountain.
Les 3 Vallees is billed as the world's largest ski area and it's hard to imagine that anything could be larger. It's made up of three “primary” areas, and two smaller ones. The primary areas are Val Thorens, Meribel and Courchevel. The two smaller areas are Les Menuires and Orelle. They are all interconnected by a lift system that is hard to believe.
There are all types of lifts … t-bars, platters, carpet conveyors, quads, six packs, 8 - 10 person gondolas, 30 - 50 person gondolas and full sized trams. There are so many lifts that they often criss-cross each other, fly over the rooftops of hotels and apartment buildings and run through the middle of the villages. The efficiency of some of the loading areas is incredible … multiple load points at the base for some of the six-packs, non-stop loading of gondolas in enclosed buildings (one even had an escalator you had to ride up to get to the loading area). All of this for a daily cost of $75 US for a five day pass.
Unfortunately, there hadn't been any new snow in quite a while, so essentially, we were limited to the groomed trails, or as they say in Europe … on piste. Almost everything that was not groomed was extremely “crunchy”, and not worth trying. There were a few exceptions here and there, but for the most part, we stayed on the trails.
It's impossible to express in words, or even in photos, the incredible beauty in these mountains. As we took each lift up, I was completely awestruck by the views and the vastness of the terrain laid out before us. Of course I would have preferred there to be a foot of fresh powder, but quite frankly, it just didn't matter. We had incredibly beautiful blue skies & sunshine, and I was more than satisfied to just enjoy the moment.
There were a couple of people in the group who felt compelled to whine and complain that the skiing was too easy, and the conditions were terrible, but these are the kind of people who would probably never be happy with anything, and just can't recognize how lucky they are to have the opportunity to be in a place like this.
I've never seen “cruisers” like this anywhere. The trails went on forever, and they were so much fun to just rip down. It wasn't about how much vertical we skied, or mileage, or anything else … it was just about enjoying the moments as they presented themselves. The entire point of a trip like this was to just enjoy it, and that's what we did.
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