Resort Check: Les ArcsCatch up on this Winter stomping ground with an excerpt from Document Snowboard issue 59
There are some places in the world whose reputations precede them. Les Arcs is one such place.
On the back of our little Tarentaise excursion last issue, and reaping the unbelievable snow falls, we wanted to get a taste of James Phillps’s home town –Les Arcs.
The trip out in our previously mentioned iron-horse of van had afforded James the time to talk us through all the nuances of his winter residence for the last 10 years. And this boy can talk. From tales of his boss at Tip Top snowboard shop, Allain, who was one of the Les Arcs snowboard pioneers, to tales of the massive jump that he had destroyed at the LA Sessions, to the formidable layout of the terrain. He was stoked and we were intrigued.
Cruising into the car park in Bourg St Maurice, on a cold, snowy morning, the quietness of the place was overwhelming. Epic conditions but, perhaps because we were just a nose ahead of the main holiday season, and with the locals stuck behind their desks, meant we were to have the resort almost entirely to ourselves.
We boarded the Arc en Ciel funicular railway straight out of the car park and, lurching uphill at 45 degrees de-boarded at Les Arcs 1600 less than 10 minutes later.
There was a fair bit of building work going on and this resort has been slated at times for being a bit of a monstrosity in places. I couldn’t really agree with that on our trip as it seemed a fairly standard resort environment and was probably better-looking than Tignes where we had just come from.
The architecture of this place carries its own stories having been designed with the help of Charlotte Perriand, one of Le Corbuiser’s colleagues. During its formation in the late ‘60s and ‘70s the resort instilled some pretty specific guidelines about how to construct the buildings in as least intrusive, and authentic, a way as possible. It was decided to restore but not to mimic the traditional chalets so that the resort didn’t ooze the cheap Las Vegas tac some of the American stops so enjoy.
Five different areas form the resort itself and with the introduction of the Vanoise Express (a massive gondola that is now fully operational) the Paradiski lift ticket actually covers the whole Paradiski area: Les Arcs, Peisey-Vallandry and La Plagne.
The five resorts of Les Arcs start at Bourg St Maurice and rise up through Les Arcs 1600, 1800, 1950 and 2000. Each area has it’s own flavour, from the tree dominated 1600 to the alpine stops at 1950 and 2000.
With not a soul around and soft hardpack spread before us, we had no reason to go to far and boosted the wide open pistes all morning, playing on the hits and ducking to the trees for some powder and pillows on the way down, just lapping the main resort chair lifts over and over again. It was so much fun riding as a pack, shot-gunning over the slope-side hips and crashing in the pow.
A little later we ventured up to les Arcs 1800 and a bit beyond, getting a good spread over the whole area.
After a quick lunch stop and a panini, we hit the lifts again but it gets dark fast at that time of year. After being pointed out a famous, and obscene looking massive jump that Axel Pauporte had claimed back in the day, the light really closed in and we headed down to the resort.
Mike, Andy and Rhianna had other things on their mind though. They found a respectable twin-bar, 18-stair down rail, right by the bars and clubs, and we duly set it up. Mike got a few solid front lips and Andy some stonking front boards after nearly breaking his arm in the rail.
Rhianna and James couldn’t stop riding either, and while James went off to grab pow slashes in the trees, hollering to ex-girlfriends on the way, Rhianna and Tim set up a little log jib.
Finally, after everyone had had enough we ducked into the nearby bar, necked a few demis, boarded the bus back down to 1600 and then the funicular down to Bourg, before driving back to Tignes and the Dragon Lodge.
This has to be one of the easiest resorts to get to in France. We had it easy anyway, just driving down from Tignes and The Dragon Lodge where we were holed up for the week. But actually, for a trip to Les Arcs all you have to do is get yourselves to Bourg-St-Maurice. The small town at the end of the snow train’s track, directly accessible from Paris.
Although it does apparently get very busy in the French holidays we didn’t experience a whiff of that on our short trip, and it would make an epic holiday spot from the UK, especially seeing as you can get a train directly to your door.
Resort info
OPEN: December 5th 2009 to April 25th 2010
AIRPORT: Geneva or Chambéry in Switzerland
TRAIN: Bourg-Saint-Maurice
TRANSFERS: www.alpski-bus.com
TEL: 0033 (0)4 79 07 68 00
WEB: lesarcs.com
WEB: paradiski.com
The French resort of Les Arcs is steeped in history. Snowboarding has courted the mountains above the Tarentaise town of Bourg-St-Maurice since it first set foot in Europe.
Back in 1982 a famous Frenchie, Régis Rolland, then training as a ski instructor, famously discovered snowboarding when Utah’s Winterstick Team rolled into town.
But Les Arcs itself hit the big time with some promotional videos, starring Régis, in the shape of Apocalypse Snow, Apocalypse Snow II and Apocalypse Snow III. Some of the first snowboard movies to inspire the fanatical response from viewers that are now standard. They saw hilarious and ridiculous plots that only the French know how to do – just imagine Daft Punk meets Independence Day, filmed by your Dad on a ski holiday. Oh, and throw in a few 60ft drops, fire jumping, and paragliding for good measure.
Resort Trivia
- Les Arcs is home to one of the longest vertical descents on a groomed run in Europe, boasting over 1000m of vertical descent.
- The Vanoise Express is a record-breaking double-decker gondola that can carry over 200 people nearly 2km and hangs at its highest 500m above ground level.
- It is also the resort where speed-skiiing made its short-lived Olympic debut as a demonstration event
- It was home to Snowboarding’s Quick Cup stop off. The multi-discipline competition incorporated surfing and skateboarding.
- The Paradiski has more lifts than the whole of New Zealand
- Bourg-Saint-Maurice has housed Brit seasonnaires for over a decade. Ageing masters from Steve Bailey, Danny Wheeler, Chris and Dave Cracknell, James Stentiford have all done time there
- It falls on one side of the Beaufort Region, home to the world famous Beaufort Cheese: ‘The King of Gruyères.”
Related Stories:
Posted by Online Editor - Fri, 23/04/2010 - 12:28pm
Catch up on this Winter stomping ground with an excerpt from Document Snowboard issue 59
There are some places in the world whose reputations precede them. Les Arcs is one such place.
On the back of our little Tarentaise excursion last issue, and reaping the unbelievable snow falls, we wanted to get a taste of James Phillps’s home town –Les Arcs.
The trip out in our previously mentioned iron-horse of van had afforded James the time to talk us through all the nuances of his winter residence for the last 10 years. And this boy can talk. From tales of his boss at Tip Top snowboard shop, Allain, who was one of the Les Arcs snowboard pioneers, to tales of the massive jump that he had destroyed at the LA Sessions, to the formidable layout of the terrain. He was stoked and we were intrigued.
Cruising into the car park in Bourg St Maurice, on a cold, snowy morning, the quietness of the place was overwhelming. Epic conditions but, perhaps because we were just a nose ahead of the main holiday season, and with the locals stuck behind their desks, meant we were to have the resort almost entirely to ourselves.
We boarded the Arc en Ciel funicular railway straight out of the car park and, lurching uphill at 45 degrees de-boarded at Les Arcs 1600 less than 10 minutes later.
There was a fair bit of building work going on and this resort has been slated at times for being a bit of a monstrosity in places. I couldn’t really agree with that on our trip as it seemed a fairly standard resort environment and was probably better-looking than Tignes where we had just come from.
The architecture of this place carries its own stories having been designed with the help of Charlotte Perriand, one of Le Corbuiser’s colleagues. During its formation in the late ‘60s and ‘70s the resort instilled some pretty specific guidelines about how to construct the buildings in as least intrusive, and authentic, a way as possible. It was decided to restore but not to mimic the traditional chalets so that the resort didn’t ooze the cheap Las Vegas tac some of the American stops so enjoy.
Five different areas form the resort itself and with the introduction of the Vanoise Express (a massive gondola that is now fully operational) the Paradiski lift ticket actually covers the whole Paradiski area: Les Arcs, Peisey-Vallandry and La Plagne.
The five resorts of Les Arcs start at Bourg St Maurice and rise up through Les Arcs 1600, 1800, 1950 and 2000. Each area has it’s own flavour, from the tree dominated 1600 to the alpine stops at 1950 and 2000.
With not a soul around and soft hardpack spread before us, we had no reason to go to far and boosted the wide open pistes all morning, playing on the hits and ducking to the trees for some powder and pillows on the way down, just lapping the main resort chair lifts over and over again. It was so much fun riding as a pack, shot-gunning over the slope-side hips and crashing in the pow.
A little later we ventured up to les Arcs 1800 and a bit beyond, getting a good spread over the whole area.
After a quick lunch stop and a panini, we hit the lifts again but it gets dark fast at that time of year. After being pointed out a famous, and obscene looking massive jump that Axel Pauporte had claimed back in the day, the light really closed in and we headed down to the resort.
Mike, Andy and Rhianna had other things on their mind though. They found a respectable twin-bar, 18-stair down rail, right by the bars and clubs, and we duly set it up. Mike got a few solid front lips and Andy some stonking front boards after nearly breaking his arm in the rail.
Rhianna and James couldn’t stop riding either, and while James went off to grab pow slashes in the trees, hollering to ex-girlfriends on the way, Rhianna and Tim set up a little log jib.
Finally, after everyone had had enough we ducked into the nearby bar, necked a few demis, boarded the bus back down to 1600 and then the funicular down to Bourg, before driving back to Tignes and the Dragon Lodge.
This has to be one of the easiest resorts to get to in France. We had it easy anyway, just driving down from Tignes and The Dragon Lodge where we were holed up for the week. But actually, for a trip to Les Arcs all you have to do is get yourselves to Bourg-St-Maurice. The small town at the end of the snow train’s track, directly accessible from Paris.
Although it does apparently get very busy in the French holidays we didn’t experience a whiff of that on our short trip, and it would make an epic holiday spot from the UK, especially seeing as you can get a train directly to your door.
Resort info
OPEN: December 5th 2009 to April 25th 2010
AIRPORT: Geneva or Chambéry in Switzerland
TRAIN: Bourg-Saint-Maurice
TRANSFERS: www.alpski-bus.com
TEL: 0033 (0)4 79 07 68 00
WEB: lesarcs.com
WEB: paradiski.com
The French resort of Les Arcs is steeped in history. Snowboarding has courted the mountains above the Tarentaise town of Bourg-St-Maurice since it first set foot in Europe.
Back in 1982 a famous Frenchie, Régis Rolland, then training as a ski instructor, famously discovered snowboarding when Utah’s Winterstick Team rolled into town.
But Les Arcs itself hit the big time with some promotional videos, starring Régis, in the shape of Apocalypse Snow, Apocalypse Snow II and Apocalypse Snow III. Some of the first snowboard movies to inspire the fanatical response from viewers that are now standard. They saw hilarious and ridiculous plots that only the French know how to do – just imagine Daft Punk meets Independence Day, filmed by your Dad on a ski holiday. Oh, and throw in a few 60ft drops, fire jumping, and paragliding for good measure.
Resort Trivia
- Les Arcs is home to one of the longest vertical descents on a groomed run in Europe, boasting over 1000m of vertical descent.
- The Vanoise Express is a record-breaking double-decker gondola that can carry over 200 people nearly 2km and hangs at its highest 500m above ground level.
- It is also the resort where speed-skiiing made its short-lived Olympic debut as a demonstration event
- It was home to Snowboarding’s Quick Cup stop off. The multi-discipline competition incorporated surfing and skateboarding.
- The Paradiski has more lifts than the whole of New Zealand
- Bourg-Saint-Maurice has housed Brit seasonnaires for over a decade. Ageing masters from Steve Bailey, Danny Wheeler, Chris and Dave Cracknell, James Stentiford have all done time there
- It falls on one side of the Beaufort Region, home to the world famous Beaufort Cheese: ‘The King of Gruyères.”