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Friday 14 June 2013

SUMMER SKIING

Val d'Isere, Tignes and Les 2 Alpes are the three main remaining sites for summer skiing in France - details of opening times etc here.  Deux Alpes seems to have the slight edge over Tignes, boasting an 800m vertical drop.

It may be a poor third, but the short summer skiing season in Val d'Isere is already underway - more details on Henry's Avalanche Talk.

After the middle of July, the two remaining choices will be Tignes and Les 2 Alpes. www.summerski.co.uk is a loyal companion.



There used to be a rather greater choice of venues...

La Plagne gave up in 2005.  The Chiaupe glacier used to be a nice, quiet, mellow place to go in summer, according to Frogblog.  It sounds like skiing up here could have continued, but it was simply not economical any more.

Alpe d'Huez used to open regularly, but no more - although it was "exceptionally" open for a week in June 2012.

Apparently there used to be summer skiing on the Grands Montets in Chamonix until the 1980s.

And Val Thorens used to attract serious skiers to the steep Peclet slopes, but global warming made things more and more difficult through the 1990s, before they gave up altogether in 2002.

Back in Les Arcs, the focus in recent years has been more on protecting the Varet glacier from retreating any further, for example in spending €30,000 on a protective sheet to keep the snow away from the sun between May and September.  I haven't researched it extensively, but there seems to be some discussion as to whether there used to be a draglift on the glacier during the 1980s.  It seems that summer skiing was certainly on the summer lift map at that time, but a guide rather than via a ski lift.

Further east, there is more summer skiing to be in Switzerland (Engleberg & Saas Fee, but no longer in Verbier or St Moritz).  Austria has a number of sites: Kaprun, Stubai, Hintertux (where lots of ski teams train) and Solden (one of the few areas for Autumn skiing) - more here.  The excellent www.weathertoski.co.uk site gives the title of "best summer ski area" in Europe to Hintertux.

2 comments:

  1. Skiing was one thing that I wanted to do while I was there and didn't get a chance to do. Jealous!

    Skiing in France

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  2. From my researches: There was talk about opening summer skiing on Le Varet glacier in the 1980s, and there was a plan to build one or possibly 2 drag lifts. Neither was ever built as the financial crisis ensuing from (among other things) the La Ravoire 'debordement' (which cost the resort 40m Francs to repair) put paid to that idea and other development ideas at the time.

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