The Resorts
The Snow Inn is situated slap-bang in the middle of the Tarentaise Valley, making skiing at any of the surrounding popular resorts a reality. Val d’Isere, Tignes, La Rosiere (all 30 mins away) and the Three Valleys (40 mins) are all easily accessible by car, while Les Arcs and La Plagne literally overlook the farmhouse. From the Snow Inn, you can enjoy the best snow in the Tarentaise, which usually means the best snow in Europe!
An ‘espace Olympique’ weekly pass for any one of these resorts includes a day at most of the other resorts in the valley, should the slopes seem a bit whiter on the other side of the mountain!
Les Arcs
The free ski bus runs directly from Landry to the funicular railway, which forms the backbone of the Les Arcs lift system. With over 400km of pistes reaching an altitude of 3300m, Les Arcs is a snow-sure resort that will keep all levels of skiers and boarders smiling. From the winding tree-lined pistes of Peisey-Vallandry, through the snowpark packed with tabletops, half pipes and a boardercross run, up to the vertiginous mogul fields, off piste chutes and Olympic speed-skiing run of the Aiguille Rouge, there really is something for everyone. Les Arcs is also known for its ‘ski-evolutif’ method of instruction, which bypasses the dreaded snow plough in favour of parallel turns on shorter skis right from the word go.
For more information see www.lesarcs.com
La Plagne
La Plagne comprises of ten inter-linked resorts, the closest of which is Montchavin, just five minutes up the road from Landry. From here you can access 215 km of pistes, 2 snowboard areas and 90 km of cross country skiing (ouch!!) served by 111 lifts. We won’t go into too much depth here as that’s what www.la-plagne.com is for, with the added bonus of dodgy French – English translations!
Other Resorts:
Les Arcs and La Plagne could keep most skiers and boarders busy for a whole season, but as variety is the spice of life a little look at the other resorts in our valley won’t do any harm!
The most famous would have to be Tignes ( www.tignes.net ) and Val d’Isere (www.valdisere.com). Just a 30 minute drive along the RN90 valley road will land you at the foot of the ‘Espace Killy’. With a higher density of challenging runs than pretty much any other ski area in the world, a day at Val is never a day wasted. Best of all are the great bars on the way home, which are certain to be far better value than Val d’Isere’s slightly overpriced watering holes!
Not so well known, but well worth mentioning are La Rosiere (www.larosiere.net) and Sainte Foy on the northern side of the valley. These quieter resorts sometimes have better snow conditions than their larger brethren and represent something of a local’s secret on fresh powder days, taking far longer to get skied out. Luckily, we’ll always know when this is the case so you’ll never be missing out on the opportunity to make fresh tracks. La Rosiere has the added novelty value of being able to ski into Italy through the Italian resort of La Thuile. Eat a genuine Italian pizza for lunch before dropping back home into France for dinner!
For those fancying a day trip further afield, the Three Valleys resorts of Courchevel, Meribel and Val Thorens/Les Menuires are 40 minutes down the valley. Although if you manage to get sick of Les Arcs, La Plagne, Val d’Isere, Tignes etc, then chances are you need a rest!
Other Activities
If you fancy a break from tearing down the slopes there are a million and one ways to have fun on the mountain. These include;
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…and just about anything else you can think of!
e-mail: info@snowinn.co.uk, tel/fax 0033 479 07 54 88