Ski France

Alpe d'Huez

Older, quieter and with more charm than its neighbour Les Deux Alpes, Alpe d'Huez has an even more extensive ski area. The Grandes Rousses massif has 86 lifts, 107 runs and 260km of pistes. And as Les Deux Alpes has a rustic "back-door" to its ski area, Alpe d'Huez has two charming satellites - Vaujany and Oz - to which skiers can retreat at the end of the day.
The focal point of Alpe d'Huez is the Pic Blanc from which, the resort claims, you can see one fifth of France.
Advanced and expert terrain (on and off-piste) radiates in all directions. These include the long and challenging Tunnel, and Sarenne, plus testing couloirs and faces around and beyond Pyramide, which should be skied with a guide.

Avoriaz

Another purpose-built French resort with controversial architecture. One of the most dramatic French resorts, rearing up with its space-age tower blocks from its cliff-top eyrie above its stablemate, Morzine.
Avoriaz is the gateway to the Portes du Soleil, a network of 13 ski areas along the French/Swiss border including the French resorts of Chatel, Abondance, Les Gets and, in Switzerland, Morgins, Torgon, Les Crosets and Champoussin. The circuit has 228 lifts serving more than 640km of pistes.
Even the longest route (about 50km) can be covered in a day by fast skiers.
The most famous run of the network is Chavanette, better known as the Swiss Wall, from Avoriaz down to Les Crosets.

Chamonix / Argentière

Chamonix's Vallée Blanche is not the most difficult offpiste skiing on the planet, but the scenery is out of this world.
It is also the only sensible way down from the Aiguille du Midi, a craggy eyrie that towers above the old climbing town of Chamonix. The "alternative" North Face is so steep that it makes most skiers blanche. Building Europe's highest cable car to this summit was a preposterous idea achieved against impossible odds.
Chamonix has many attractions, including half a dozen ski areas, but most "serious" skiers are drawn either to the Aiguille du Midi or Argentière's Grands Montets. Between these two massifs lies the Mer de Glace (the huge sea of ice formed where glaciers converge) which forms the basis for the main 22km Vallée Blanche descent.
Keep an eye on your gtude's progress to avoid the myriad crevasses on the Glacier de Geant. Your attention will be riveted by peaks, domes, needles, pyramids and pinnacles.
The Grands Montets provides some of Europe's best skiing on and off-piste, with a huge vertical drop and one run - Point du Vue - which allows skiers to visit the portals of the seracs of the Glacier d'Argentière.

Courchevel / Méribel

Courchevel is an excellent ski resort, but why it is rated the most chic, upmarket and the most expensive in France is not clear. The flagship village of Courchevel 1850 is not picturepostcard material. However, it has several four-star hotels.
The less fashionable Courchevel 1650 has more rustic appeal: it is cheaper and has plenty of good skiing, including the excellent off-piste Les Avals itinerary reached after hiking from the top-of Chanrossa.
Well-heeled skiers would not be seen anywhere but 1850, highest of the resort's three main areas. Three of Courchevel's famous couloirs - Sous le Télépherique, Grand and Emile Allais (all reached from the top of the Saulire cable-car) are listed as black runs.
Much of Courchevel's skiing is good intermediate fare. There is an abundance of nursery slopes.
Courchevel links with Méribel, Les Menuires and Val Thorens to form the Trois Vallées ski region probably the biggest expanse of skiing in the world.
Méribel (Mottaret and Les Allues) - which shelters between Courchevel and Les Menuires at the heart of the three valleys - offers skiers wonderful choice. In one direction they can make for Courchevel; in the other they can head for Les Menuires, Val Thorens or St Martin de Belleville. Or they can stay in Méribel and enjoy acres of good skiing there.

Flaine

Traditionally Flaine, in the Grand Massif, shared with Tignes the distinction of drawing more flak over its architecture than all the other purpose-built French resorts, with only the attractive old town of Samoëns and the village of Les Carroz providing any real charm.
Flaine is ideal for beginners and intermediates, with trails linking Flaine via Les Grands Vans with Samoëns, Les Carroz and Morillon.
There is excellent off-piste for the more advanced, but the mountains around Flaine are notorious for pot-holes. Take a guide.

La Plagne

Brochure writers love to describe their resorts as "an intermediates' paradise". La Plagne is the genuine article.
It is really a dozen hamlets and villages strung together in a vast maze of skiing.
The flagship is Aime La Plagne, perched high above the resort. This space-age ski city houses accommodation, restaurants, shops and a cinema but is ugly.
The skiing is so extensive that those obsessed with achieving a daily mileage can find their plans misfiring: there is a danger of spending too much time on the vast lift network, especially for those who set their sights on the Bellecôte Glacier.

Les Arcs

When the French started to pioneer purpose-built ski resorts in the 1960s, the results varied from good to bad to indifferent.
Les Arcs is reckoned a success, inspiring copy-cat resorts in other countries.
The resort is split into three: Arc 1600, 1800 and 2000. The architecture is brave and imposing.
The skiing is extensive and adventurous and dominated by the Aiguille Rouge (3,426m) above Arc 2000. Runs lead everywhere from the top, including the celebrated 15km descent all the way to Villaroger, which starts off with black or red alternatives but mellows.
Les Arcs is renowned for its off-piste skiing above and below the tree-line. Some of it verges on the extreme. The resort is famous for its ski esolutif (graduated length) teaching concept which allows beginners to start on very short skis, gradually switching to longer ones.

Les Deux Alpes / La Grave

Les Deux Alpes is a bustling, brash and booming ski area with a huge British following and an effervescent night life. Les Deux Alpes is a skiing factory.
On the other side of the towering La Meije (3,982m) is the silent and beautiful glacier kingdom of La Grave with almost none of the normal impedimenta of a ski resort.
La Grave is a picturesque climbing village invaded by a few tough, thrill-seeking skiers there for the more than 2,000 vertical metres of steep, untracked terrain. Only a 15 minute walk separates the areas but is sufficient to discourage recreational skiers from wandering over from Les Deux Alpes.
Les Deux Alpes works in reverse compared with most resorts - the lower you ski, the steeper the slopes.
It has a rustic backwater: skiers can reach the resort from the spectacular valley below Venosc via an ancient two-seater gondola. St Christophe-en-Oisans below Venosc is also the destination point of a spectacular alter native to skiing La Grave.
From the Dome de la Lauze a guide will lead you down the magnificent Vallon de la Selle one of the most breathtaking descents in the Alps though not too demanding technically.

Val d'Isere / Tignes

The Trois Vallées and Portes du Soleil are bigger but Val d Isère (with the help of its neighbour Tignes, France's most famous summer ski area) may just be the best ski resort in the world - at least for adventurous skiers: the better the skier the more extensive the challenging terrain.
The resorts swarm with specialist ski schools among the best of which are Top Ski (Val) and Evolution 2 (Tignes).
With their guides it is possible to spend a fortnight skiing off-piste and scarcely touch a groomed run except to ski from one off-piste area to another. There is also excellent couloir skiing.
Intermediates can roam between the various areas - Le Fornet, La Daille and Bellevarde in Val, Le Lac, Lavachet, La Grande Motte Glacier, Brévières and Val Claret in Tignes - without needing to ski a run twice and both resorts have world class bump skiing.
There is plenty for beginners. Tignes is purpose-built and not pretty but Val d'Isère has an old quarter.
The link between the two is manageable by most. Val d'Isère's big rival, Courchevel, tends to attract older, richer clients: Val appeals to younger skiers in search of challenging terrain and the liveliest nightlife. Dick's T-Bar has long been the focal point for British skiers.

Val Thorens / Les Menuires

Val Thorens, Europe's highest ski resort is a big exciting but sometimes bleak ski area which like La Plagne and Flaine - is trying to soften its image.
Both Val Thorens and its neighbour Les Menuires began as soulless collections of concrete apartment blocks but in the late 1980s and early l990s have added rustic touches. Val Thorens now has a copper and pink church and Les Menuires has attempted to make its satellite, Reberty, prettier.
Further down the Belleville Valley and easy to get to on skis is St Martin - a traditional large village with exhilarating roller-coaster runs such as Bethlehem and La Riondaz.
St Martin s rustic atmosphere provides a welcome contrast to the space-age skiing of its higher neighbours.
Val Thorens big attraction is the Cime de Caron (3,194m) and a 160-person cable car. The runs from the top are long and gruelling.

 

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