Day four – last day of skiing in Les Deux Alpes

Today was my last day of skiing in Les Deux Alpes, France. Overnight we had received a little snow in the town, but it had melted before I had finished breakfast. I had a bad start to the day. I had got all my ski gear on, was walking down the road, when I looked back and saw a note on the car. I went back and had a look, it was all in French. I got out of my boots (I hate taking ski boots off once I have them on for the day), went back in to the hotel and found someone to translate the note for me… basically it was from the hotel asking me to move the car so they could get the rubbish out!

To make the start of the day even worse, by the time I got to the lift the queue was so long (see photo below, once in the building the queue ’snakes’ twice) that I estimated it would be a good hour before I got up the slopes. This was annoying, fresh snow and sunshine, and an hour in the queue, I just don’t understand why the resort does not have more (or even better) lifts out of the town to the main ski area.

In the end I decided to walk the half mile to the next lift (slightly larger than the 4 person bubble at my end of town).

A lack of lifts from the town makes it difficult to get to the main ski area at the start of the day

I finally got up to the main ski area, and as the weather was so nice I decided to ‘push-on’ to the top and have a look at the glacier area that had been shrouded in cloud, with high winds, the day before (see post). And it was worth the effort…

First view of the top from one of the nearby summits (note the drags up the slope, there are no chair lifts at the top)

I found the ‘funicular’ railway (a lot easier to find when there isn’t a howling gale and driving snow), and took it to the top, I still find it very weird that there is this underground railway at the top of a mountain….

Main entrance to the funicular railway, the ‘diagonal’ on the left is a ‘car’ down from the top restaurant

The underground railway to the top of Les Deux Alpes Glacier

At the top the view is fantastic. I had no idea where I was in the fog yesterday (see earlier post), or what was around me, so it was surprising to see how high and exposed the summit is.

The view from the top of Les Deux Alpes

Skiing was great. The snow was in perfect condition. The terrain at the top is not challenging and is really just ‘cruiser trails’, that is, easy skiing, and in the sunshine it was great fun. I did run several times (using the drag to get back to the top).

Interestingly, it is also possible to ski ‘the other-way’ off the top to another couple of drags, however, the only way to get back to the ‘top’ seemed to involve an uphill walk. In the exit shed for the funicular railway there also seemed to be an entrance to an ‘ice sculpture’ area(?).

Up the centre of the piste at the top of Les Deux Alpes are two drags, there are no chair lifts. (Looks like my guess yesterday (see post) for the reason for building the ‘underground’, i.e. high winds, maybe correct.)

Off the top, to the right when skiing down, there are a number of really fun, and quite steep, runs down to a lift. These runs were great fun.

Runs from the top!

The last run of the day (season) was from the top of the 4 person bubble (see top picture for the start of the bubble) down a black run, back to the hotel. It was a great run. The top was hard packed powder, and very fast, half-way down I entered a mogul field full of large, rock-hard bumps, which after awhile gave way to really soft ’spring-like’ moguls, and at the bottom it was just slush! A good way to end the season…

Les Deux Alpes, France – theSnowSite Entry – map it – Google Earth kml file

45.0046,6.12202