Summer holidays in the Alps and ski resorts

If you can’t wait until next season to get your fix of fresh Alpine air, why not check out our new 2012 summer website at www.ernalowsummer.co.uk, for our handpicked selection of summer Alpine holidays.  See below for some of our current summer offers.

		L’Aiglon de Morzine 7 nights from 25th August - just £128 per person, based on maximum occupancy in a 3 bedroom 6/8 person apartment.
		Le Nevada, Tignes 7 nights from 7th July – just £76 per person, based on maximum occupancy in a 2 bedroom 4/6 person apartment. BOOK BY APRIL 30TH AND SAVE AN ADDITIONAL 10%!
		Les Fermes de St Gervais 7 nights from 23rd June – just £60 person, based on maximum occupancy in a 2 bedroom 6 person apartment. BOOK 12 NIGHTS & GET 14, OR BOOK 2 WEEKS & GET 3!

Landslide blocks Tignes and Val d’Isere

The road to Tignes and Val d’Isere was closed last night, due to a landslide on the road to Bourg-St-Maurice, just before the entrance to the Brevieres tunnel.

Photo courtesy of Radio Val d'Isere (http://www.radiovaldisere.com)

It is estimated that 80 cubic metres of rock fell on the road, with another 45 cubic metres above the road still loose.

Work is ongoing to clear the road and currently it is open with one way traffic lights in place.   The road will close between 0200 and 0700 on the morning of Saturday 09 March, so anyone travelling to or from resorts is advised to allow extra time for their journeys.

Ask Rob: Where is the best place to stay in Tignes?

In the latest of our Ask Rob video series, Julia Nelson asks “Where is the best place to stay in Tignes?”

Rob recommends Les Suites de Nevada at the higher end of the range or the Hameau de Borsat if the budget is more of an issue.

Ask your question using our Facebook page, Twitter or this blog.

For more information on holidays please go to our website or call 0845 863 0525

Erna Low Latest Ski Holiday Special Offers – December 2011

17^th December, Serre Chevalier, France: from £85

40% off accommodation price (reduced from £124) is the total price per person based on maximum occupancy in a 2 bedroom 4/7 persons in Chalet in Le Chalets du Jardin Alpin. Self-catering, ski-drive price includes return Eurotunnel crossing with Free FlexiPlus upgrade, not flights.  Accommodation for 7 nights starting 17^thDecember.

24^th December, Tignes Val Claret, France: from £202

25% off accommodation price (reduced from £257) is the total price per person based on maximum occupancy in a Studio 5 persons apartment in Residence Le Borsat IV. Self-catering, ski-drive price includes return Eurotunnel crossing with Free FlexiPlus upgrade, not flights.  Accommodation for 7 nights starting

24^th December, Val Thorens, France: from £210

40% off accommodation price (reduced from £321) is the total price per person based on maximum occupancy in a Studio 4 persons Comfort apartment in Residence Les Olympiades. Self-catering, ski-drive price includes return Eurotunnel crossing with Free FlexiPlus upgrade, not flights.  Accommodation for 7 nights starting 24^th December.

24^th December, Termingnon Le Vanoise, France: from £110

45% off accommodation price (reduced from £176) is the total price per person based on maximum occupancy in a 1 bedroom + cabin 6 persons apartment in Residence Les Terrasses de Termignon. Self-catering, ski-drive price includes return Eurotunnel crossing with Free FlexiPlus upgrade, not flights. Accommodation for 7 nights starting 24^th December.

More French ski resorts opening this weekend…

In case you hadn’t noticed, the snow has eventually arrived.

It has been snowing since early this week, and it should carry on until the end of the week, to bring up to 40 centimetres of fresh snow on the slopes of the Savoie Mont Blanc region in France, as well as across the Alps.

Snow in La Tania this week

Five resorts have already opened in the last few weeks: Courchevel, Tignes, Val d’Isère and Val Thorens for alpine skiing, as well as Bessans for cross country skiing.

More than 10 other resorts are opening this weekend: Les Arcs, Bourg Saint Maurice, Avoriaz, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Châtel, Flaine, Les Menuires, Méribel, Montriond, Orelle, Peisey-Vallandry, La Plagne, La Tania and Valloire

For more information on holidays please go to our website or call 0845 863 0525

BUDS – British University Dry Slope Championships in Edinburgh bring back memories of my season in Val d’Isere!

Sadly my days as a seasonnaire in Val d’Isere are over and snow withdrawal symptoms have been getting to me all summer. So instead of waxing my skis and stocking up on thermals; I’ve bought tinned food and even bought an economics text book (shock, horror!) and dragged myself away from gap year temptations to the University of Birmingham. But who’d have thought that I could keep up my skiing obsession at uni! Apart from Birmingham boasting one of the best ski (and snowboard) clubs in the country – going to the British university dry slope championships (BUDS) in Edinburgh last weekend did replace the amazing seasonnaire lifestyle for a bit. Despite the 7hr bus journey and the arrival at 9am, no one could get past the excitement of trying out the huge Hillend dryslope and the epic kicker that would be overrun by over 70 universities and over 1100 competitors!

Hillend - A beautiful sunny day ending with real SNOW!

As well as two days of competing in both racing and freestyle there was two epic nights out, first at City night club in the city and then a black tie event with a delicious meal (even though the usual uni antics resulted in our cheesecake being refused to us; I’m still wondering what they are going to do with all that cheesecake?!) and after party.

Boarders wow the crowd

Sadly I wasn’t competing, but came along for the awesome weekend and to watch all the amazing Brumski (Birmingham ski and snowboard club) members shred up the dry slope; even passing the finish line on their backs, landing back flips, making podium finishes in freestyle and reaching speeds that, even after watching the world cup from my lovely apartment in Val d’isere and Tignes last year, were amazing! Sadly it had to end, so back to essays on ‘industries with an external diseconomy of scales’ and dreaming of landing 360s next year; even if it means hitching a lift with an ambulance home instead of the bus. Or should I ditch it all and grab a cheap ski deal to go back to the Alps for another season? ……… Hannah

Awesome alternative to a season!

Thank you Caroline Thomas for the photos!

Tearing it up on and off piste in Tignes!

Gemma, the newest member of the Erna Low team, shares a censored version of her break to Tignes with her fellow students.

After a tiresome 24-hour coach journey filled with anticipation, I eventually arrived in resort for my ski holiday to Tignes with my fellow uni friends at our ski-in, ski-out accommodation right on the piste, Le Borsat IV for our week’s ski adventure. I was very excited but rather nervous as I had bravely hired a snowboard for the week after only having a measly few hours practice in lessons a couple of weeks before the trip but I brought along my ski equipment just so I could backtrack from my not-so-well thought out original plan.

I couldn't abandon the skis for too long!

The first day on the slopes consisted of falling off every chair lift and sticking to blue runs close to our apartment to steady my nerves but by 3pm, one of the many après bars at the base of the resort was the best place for me. I stuck to skiing for the rest of the week.

I arranged my ski trip with Canterbury Christ Church University and opted out of the extended lift pass to the Val d’Isere ski region as you could pretty much ski over to that area without forking out the extra Euros. Independently, Tignes boasts a large ski terrain for all ski types, for example there are several Snow Parks and a Boarder Cross that skiers can experience to get away from the pisted runs. The main benefits for visitors to Tignes are that it is part of the large well-linked ski area of L’Espace Killy and due to its high altitude (Tignes Val Claret is 2100m) the resort is renown with having a reliable snow record. Consequently its popularity has risen as in recent seasons there has been reduced snowfall throughout Europe, attracting holiday-makers to high altitude destinations.

choosing my line...

The many bars in Val Claret meant that every night was spent in a combination of different venues and the resort was very compact so that it wasn’t hard to find each hub! My favourites were Saloon Bar – with a massive party atmosphere, live music for après and a huge cocktail menu and Melting Pot, where you’ll find a good selection of dance music – Drum n Bass, Electro, Hip Hop and fortunately the prices are reasonable – for a club.

One of our numerous nights out...

I happily enjoyed a few blue skies and powder snow days on my trip, which was just ideal and the last day’s skiing was the best end to the trip with great snow and superb weather – without the outrageous goggle tan marks!

We’re at the Winter X Games in Tignes…

The X Games come to Tignes and Erna Low’s roving reporter, Tim,  follows them there!

Since their launch in 1995 the Winter X Games have come to be known as one of the biggest freestyle skiing and snowboarding events on the calendar. Until now they have never been hosted in Europe, but Tignes has scored a contract for 3 seasons, starting now.

Over several days, the programme consists of Slopestyle and Superpipe disciplines, of which I saw the mens’ ski Slopestlye (a series of enormous jumps and rails for riders to show off their talent) and the snowboard Superpipe (which is like a normal halfpipe but ENORMOUS).

Slopestyle at the X Games

If the pipe doesn’t look that big take note of the small blob on the left hand side between the first 2 floodlights. Well, that’s an upside down person a few metres in the air!

The Pipe

The games have lots of things going on to attract an audience including a show of crazy people on skidoos who also like to spend time upside down very high in the air.

While I was in Tignes though I did catch up with some past seasonaire friends who were getting involved in the X-citement.

X-citement!

There are lots of evening activities and promotions including world class Djs, but I had to get back to La Plagne, where they are no doubt celebrating local rider Kevin Rolland’s victory in the ski superpipe.
Former Erna Low rep, Rick saw Rolland’s winning run and said that it was incredible how high the skiers can launch themselves.

Check out www.winterxgameseurope.com and you can see Rolland’s run below…. class!

Discovering the snow parks of Espace Killy…

Hannah is continuing to conquer the slopes of Val d’Isere and Tignes on her ski season and discovers the snow parks…

After weeks of bad weather and white outs, Val d’Isere is finally getting its share of sunny days including blazing temperatures of -4 degrees! So with less bad weather comes the scary prospect of checking out the snow parks. Yes, very daunting to ski towards a massive ramp and not know what’s behind it, especially when there always seems to be someone watching – oh well, got to start somewhere. And then there’s actually landing the jump and not leaning back too far so you don’t fall flat on your backside (can you tell that I’m well practised at  falling over yet?!). But that’s no problem now when visiting the snow park at the top of Val Claret in Tignes due to the most amazing invention ever! Yes, I’m slightly obsessed by the air bag at the bottom of one of the red jumps – amazing!

Shame I'm just about to stack it!

Difficult to hurt yourself (not impossible!) and a nice comfy landing means you can pretty much try anything you want; I’m very much tempted to try some back flips next time I go out! Although there is one downside which is the queues that build up, so I would defiantly recommend having a go in the morning rather than afternoon. The Tignes park feels like more of a run so I prefer it but the Val park also has some great jumps and is worth a visit. So in short if you feel like trying your hand at some amateur hot dogging then I would definitely suggest trying some jumps and tricks here on a Espace Killy ski holiday…

The inside scoop on the runs in the Espace Killy

Hannah, our resident seasonnaire in Val d’Isere working in a Ski World chalet gives us the low down on the best slopes…

After working and living in Val d’Isere for about 3 months, these are my favourite runs as well as some of the worst that I would suggest avoiding simply because they’re pretty nasty. But bear in mind conditions will change over the next few months. Fistly, AVOID ‘epaule du charvet’ which is a black run which goes down into central Val d’Isere from the bottom of the ‘Datcha’ lift – it is essentially a short steep run covered in moguls. Only a few days ago I managed to get some spectacular scratches on my back after sliding down half the run and not being able to stop myself until I hit the powder at the bottom! There is also a lovely blue run that runs down the side called the ‘Santons’ so I can’t understand why you’d want to do this run anyway. Another run with nasty moguls is at the bottom of the ‘Trifolet’ which runs into La Daille – Last time I went past the entrance, it was closed but the bottom is accessible from a bit of off-piste. On a brighter note, some of favourite runs include the ‘Germain Mattis’ which is icy at the top but a great tree run which runs into ‘Le Laisinant’.

Stunning view from the top of Toviers at 2704m

 If you fancy pisted runs with little ice then I’d suggest the runs in Tignes Le Lac, especially up the Palafour lift. And also you have the added benefit of the sun which tends to prefer Tignes rather than Val D’isere. Another good lengthy run is the ‘Double M’ run which comes in Val Claret from the top of the Lanches lift. It can get a bit icy and is in the shade but it’s pretty wide and I wouldn’t consider it a red run but more of a hard blue run since it has a bit of steep bit at the beginning. If you want some nice easy skiing, or are a beginner, then I would suggest up the Solaise lift in Val d’Isere which is where I learnt to ski on the ‘Madeline’ slope. The lift also goes down as well as up so you don’t even have to do the red or black runs down afterwards. Yes, it’s pretty bad that after being here so long that I haven’t completed the Espace Killy map yet; so I still have to explore la Grande Motte, the glacier and Tignes les Brevieres. So I shall have to update when I get round to completing those runs. I’ve also heard that a really good day of skiing consists of going from one side of the map to the other by starting in La Fornet ending in Tignes les Brevieres. This is all very subjective and there are still loads of great runs which I haven’t described, but you’ll have a great ski holiday in Val d’Isere just by trying to cover as much ground as possible and not sticking to the same runs since there is so much to explore.