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The Plagne eek.gif !! Be careful mate, that killed 1000's or euros a few hundred years ago. Much worse than SARS.

 

My St Moritz trip has just been cancelled. Lost some deposit, oh well. Have fun in fantastic Europe. wave.gif

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La Plagne is one of the best french ski resorts. It has a 2000 meters vertical drop and since this december it has a new 'telepherique' making the junction between La Plagne and Les Arcs offering one of the largest skiable area in the world. I have been skiing at nearby Les Arcs many many years ago. It was great skiing. Lots of off-piste possibilities. Unfortunately I think snow is not that great at the moment and only 2 thirds of the resort is open. But things surely will get better. You should have a blast, but otherwise just prepare yourself for the indiscipline of the French when it comes to queuing. Also, it is good to avoid the month of february for skiing in france since huge crowds hit the slopes for the school holidays, so Jan should be good. La Plagne just had another 25cm today and more fluff on the way.

 

For the usual trusted weather maps for the french alps, try http://lagrave-lameije.com/hiver/meteoneige.asp . Page is in french. Go to the bottom of the page and you will have 2 maps. Snow accumulation for the past 3 days is on the left and for the next 3 days on the right. Look near 'Meribel' on the map to have an idea of the general location. Have a great trip and please let us know how it was when you are back!

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Thanks for the info, SerreChe. I am looking forward to the skiing but not to the long commute to get there! That's another important reason I prefer Japan. When you mentioned the new 'telepherique', I suppose you mean that new awesome double-decker! As for the indisciplined queueing, I had a taste of that last year in Les Trois Vallees. It is certain different from Japan but is certainly not a problem for me, I'm from Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, only the meek queue, and let me tell you, there aren't many meekies here! But as you say, I'll be there and back before the French school holidays so it shouldn't be too bad.

As for the snow quality, I'm quite optimistic about that since they're pretty high up and I heard they had many Snow Making Markies...I mean Machines.

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Know what you mean, used to live in HK. Then you should enjoy it. Did not know the new gondola was a double-decker! Well, you should have a fantastic trip especially since they just had more snow with another 50cm to 1m forecast for the next few days. Take it easy and enjoy.

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Relax, it has just been dumping large over the french alps and La Plagne has 280cm up top. Home sweet home (Serre Chevalier) has the most in France at the moment with 300cm. More snow on the forecast. Looks like you are leaving at the perfect time. But ur right, be careful with the avies. Do not go off-piste alone and have the proper equipment. If the snow conditions are not right, then skip it altogether regardless of whether you have the proper equipment. France has an avalanche rating scale that goes from 1 to 5. Currently the highest at 5/5 (but they always have the habit of putting it at 5 after a new snowfall). You can easily check it at the resort or on the net. ENJOY !

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Forget the female issue? How am I supposed to do that?

But seriously, I find the Japanese more hospitality minded and I enjoy the food, culture and luxurious facilities, not to mention the short flight and no time lag.

However, you can't beat the Alps (except maybe Whistler) for the vastness of the terrain. Quite overwhelming.

Japan still tops the list for me but nice to have some variety.

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Was in La Plagne last year and was caught out by the late night ski lifts. If you are drinking in a different bit of the resort, especially if lower down than where you are staying, make sure you figure out what time the bubble shuts (it was 11 something last year). We managed to miss the last lift and ended up having to walk up the piste to get to our appartment.... No idea how long it took but do remember stumbling through hotels and using their lifts to get out at exits higher up the hill!

 

Snowboarding was awesome though and there was good good alpine food (none of this MacDonalds half way up the mountain!).

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O.K. folks I'm back.

The first day snowed quite a lot and there was poor visibility. Had to go slow and was falling all over the place. After that, we had good weather with sunshine every day.

The terrain was huge and varied as expected and I was not disappointed but also not over-awed. As for the lifts, I was very glad that the crowds and queues weren't too bad as it was before the French school holidays. However, after being spoiled by the covered ski-lifts in J-Land, I found the open ski-lifts very brutal on the face, especially since their rides were generally much longer than those in J-Land.

I also tried out the newly opened Vanoise Express linking La Plagne to Les Arcs. That was a major disappointment. Apart from its very impressive double-decker capacity of 201 people per ride, it was very slow, making it necessary to wait for ever to get across mainly because most of the time one of the two independently operating cars had breakdown problems.

The food was usually good but very pricey compared with last year at Les Trois Vallees. Then lunch usually cost about 10 Euros but this year it averaged out to be 12 Euros for a Main Course and a Drink. I preferred the food at Karuizawa by far.

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Glad you made it back OK. It is good to hear feedback about the place. Yes, those covered lifts in Japan are great, I agree. Japan has this very unique sense of service and quality. I have been stuck on some of these unprotected lifts in France in brutal weather, not fun. Terrain must be great though even if the connection sucked. It could have been worse though, there was not much snow before you left. I have a friend who went to Megeve a couple of weeks before you went to France and had to ski on artificial snow... Compared to this, Japan seems to have heaps of snow every year on a more consistent basis. Where's your next trip?

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My next trip? I am now looking at Kiroro, Hokkaido for Easter.

As for the terrain in La Plagne, it was also great to enjoy their off-piste policy...i.e. ski at your own risk. Even with the pistes that had been closed and barricaded off, people were free to weave through the barriers without objection from ski-patrols looking on. I didn't try the closed pistes, but this was the first time I did any real off-piste skiing.

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O.K., I can't resist the pun, so here it comes:

 

Actual my skiing is WITH polls. Every time I ski there is a great debate about why I should ski with poles and why they are necessary and useful. Whether in France or in Japan, the result of the polls is always the same:

At first, everyone (except me) agrees that I should ski with poles. Then after seeing me ski for some time and seeing me try to ski with poles, in the end the polls always show a slight majority in favour of me skiing without poles because I can obviously get along quite well without them, but become very clumsy when I try to use them properly (as opposed to just holding them and skiing as if without them).

 

Maybe we can get some feedback from Sunrise. She is the only one in this forum who has seen me skiing without poles.

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Snollerblader? That's the first time I've heard that one! But no, I'm not a snowblader. I'm on 170 skis.

I did two really steep black drops that were very long. One was on top of Aiguille Rouge (3226m) in Les Arcs accessible by gondola and the other was on top of Les Verdons (2500m)in La Plagne which is only accessible by chairlift. Unfortunately, the highest one I wanted to try, Glacier de Bellecote (3417m) was closed during the week I was there and when I last checked, is still closed. That is also accessible by gondola.

There were a few other off-piste runs which my Dutch friend, Hans, did but I decided not to venture.

There are many tree runs lower down the mountain, but I only tried one short one.

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LPL, I think it is a blessed area with everything from incredible steeps, huge top to bottoms and incredibly long slopes. I believe that it also has the largest overall skiable area in the world. In the end depending on what you like, there is something for you there. You need to know where to go and when to go. I love skiing in Japan with its incredible culture and people and food and Onsen and great realiable snow cover but I must say that there is a sprecial feel skiing in the french alps if you are there at the right time (snow cover has been unreliable over the past few years). Only there have I been down slopes so steep you feel your heart dropping in your stomach (I tried to ski the Delirium Dive in Banff, Canada but was closed due to lack of snow, but I am sure there are some pretty gnarly runs in north america), or have I skied high enough to be above the cloud cover, or have I skied in a tunnel filled with snow through a cliff face, or skied down a slope 16km long (Sarenne, in l'alpe d'huez), or skied resorts with over 2000m top to bottom with no ski patrol and no grooming (powder all the way but ski at your own risks)....etc. But again I have skied there most of my life and I am probably biased. But would clearly recommend the place. By the way, I have always wondered why Japanese resorts always seem to stop half-way up the montain where the best snow/steeps/terrain is? It seems there is a lot of un-tapped potential at many Japanese resorts. Maybe related to the law (ecology?) or something like that...

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