French Alps Dec10-12, Here is My Plan - Page 2

Now, if your new sticks were a pair of Volkl Karma's then that would be something!

Yep - was mainly freeing the heel, freeing the bowel, but did a bit on the demo skis.  You & Nells both sold up?

Sorry for the OT

{ot}
I'm sold, hers is still on the market.

The official name of the Swiss Wall is  la Chavanette, but it's also known as the "Mur Suisse" ;)
The slope is classified in the Swiss/French difficulty rating as orange.
I've never been down it (I was seven the last time I was in Avoriaz :P)
 but judging by what people say and by the looks of it seems like quite the challenge:

Orange means it's a ski route. Un-patrolled, un-groomed and you ski there under your full responsibility.
An off-piste, in short. Like the Canalone at Made (Canalone. Camosci and the Angeloga, are just the only "officially" mapped ski routes in Italy, afaik)

The Wall looks worse than it is in those photos due to foreshortening.  I'd liken it to something a bit easier than the Face/Gunbarrel at Heavenly and IIRC it meelows out a fair amount after the first quarter.

That is a nice looking bump run, what fun.  Seriously they do not patrol this.  It would take a whole lot of poachers to build those bumps, sure would like to be one on a day as pictured  .

Snowbird Devotee

I'd go Option 2 if I was you.  If you've never been to the Alps  the Chamonix valley is something special and if you get a clear day worth going up to the top of GM/A de Midi for the views alone. I can recommend Hotel La Couronne in Argentiere as a modest friendly French hotel with plenty of eating options nearby. 

If the snows not heavy don't rule out driving over the pass to Martigny and maybe getting up to Saas Fee. Shorter drive than Tignes possibly.


No poaching necessary - I'm sure it used to be graded as a black and is certainly controlled.  Itinerary classification is only a recent get out for resorts trying to limit liabilities to clueless skiers who don't take responsibility for their own actions and expect everything to be groomed AFAIK.  
Edited by fatbob - 10/15/09 at 1:57pm

Wow, really? I didn't know that. Pretty cool if true.

For sure they have snow on the glacier, just a question of when they want to reopen.

BTW, what does it mean "VW-sized" in this day/age? Funny how that stayed in the lexicon.

Careful, though, the places with glaciers tend to run seasons in sections: winter season, say, into May. Then a summer season from end-June or so into late Sept or early Oct. Then winter season, usually from mid to late Nov. If Zermatt is open now, for sure it's glacier only. I don't know if they open the glacier in the early part of the winter season, it might be too cold/windy, etc. I don't know enough about their scheduling to say for sure. No doubt they have skiing pretty much all year round for national teams and such, not sure if lifts are always open to public.

 

 

Chamonix and Zermatt (you have to park at Tassch) combo for the alps in a weekend experience.  Autoroute back via Montreux/Lausanne.

 Pa will have a tough time measuring up after that!.

Zermatt is a place where you have to spend more than a couple of days. As fatbob said you can only drive to Tasch and must take to train into Zermatt as there are no cars allowed in Zermatt. Access to the skiable terrain is on several faces and you have to take a shuttle to get to them. Once you get to the lifts/gondolas/funicular etc.. it will take time to access the skiable terrain. Also lift tickets must be purchased in town.
You really can't arrive in Zermatt and plan on skiing the same day. It just takes too much time to get to the skiable terrain.

I do! I've been to Zermatt twice and it's unlike many resorts since the town is pedestrian except for the electric vehicles used by the hotels and businesses or the horse drawn carriages. The town is beautiful and so is the scenery but it does a take a while to get to the skiable terrain as I've said, and skiing the same day that you arrive is quite an undertaking. Geneva to Tasch is 2 hours and 45 minutes without traffic, then you have to park and take the train into Zermatt. If you stay in town, the hotel will need to pick you up at the train station. After check-in you'll need to locate the lift ticket office, then get a shuttle to one of the mountain access gondolas/funiculars etc... I would say by the time you actually get to ski it could easily be mid afternoon.
I'm not saying you shouldn't go to Zermatt because it is beutiful and I would go back in a heart beat, it's just that it's a tough place to ski-in and ski-out if you have limited time and that is why I said it's better if you can spend more than just a day or two there.

It sounds to me like you're going to spend considerably more time driving than actually skiing. I like to move around a bit myself, but especially on a short trip I would never sacrifice time on the snow in order to move to another location. Rather for a short trip I would do everything I could to maximize my time on the snow.

nacg8or seems to be trying to tell you that you will not be able to drive to Zermatt from Chamonix in the morning and ski a full day. That means that by moving, you are giving up time on the snow.

If I understand your plan correctly, you will ski 0.5 days in Chamonix, and either 1.5 days in Zermatt or 0.5 days in Zermatt and 1 day in Saas Fee. You happy with short trips of a couple days to Snowbird. These resorts are all much larger than Snowbird, you've never been to them before (and thus do not know how to most efficiently get to the best skiing), and culturally they offer something new. And yet you are planning on spending less time in each resort than you would on a normal trip to Snowbird.

Imagine that Whistler is three hours from Vail, and you've never been to either. Would you spend a day in Whistler and then get up early and drive to Vail, not getting there in time to ski a full day? Now imagine that Whistler village is actually interesting. In the end, by attempting to do both, you end up not really seeing either. And you've skied less.

It's your vacation and of course you can do what you want. Personally I think it's madness. My advice is to only go to one resort. If it's Zermatt, you will not be skiing that first day, so you get two days skiing. If it's Chamonix you can be skiing before noon, so you get 2.5+ days skiing. Chamonix is a great place and culturally fascinating. I have not been to Zermatt, but I'm sure it is to. It would be a shame to blow through those places at the end of the day and miss out on that aspect of your trip. Anyway, of course it's up to you, and I'm sure you'll have a great time regardless.

Have fun!

I think you can do a lot at Zermatt in a full day. I arrived there once from Milan before lifts opened, having taken one of the early trains from Tasch, popped into the hotel where my Mom was staying, booted up, and got a good day. Course, I didn't have jet lag at the time. But with the exception of the Gonnergrat train (avoid it) liftlines aren't so bad. Go straight to the Sonnegga train, make for the Rothorn and you're in business. Can't imagine not wanting to stay at least a night or so, but whatever floats your boat.

 

Zermatt is not really SO huge, I mean, it's not like the 3 Vals or Val d'Isere or anything. It's way bigger than anything in the States, though.

If you want to ski both Zermatt and Saas Fe, you might want to spend the night in Tasch.

If you go to Zermatt, I would highly recommend a small hotel where my wife and I stayed a couple of years ago.  It's called City Hotel Garni.  The hotel is small and quiet with very nice rooms.  It's well-located and the owner speaks excellent English.  Here's what it looks like:



Ask for room 304 or 404.  If you're lucky and the sun is out, here's what you would see from the balcony (this is during September):



Zermatt is a great place.  We thought the cemetery in the middle of town was very interesting (a couple of blocks from the City Hotel).  It's sort of a memorial to climbers, with gravestones giving details of climbing fatalities on the Matterhorn and other surrounding peaks.  Like many of the others who have responded in this thread, I think you'll wish you were spending more time in each of the places you'll visit, but that's up to you.

I agree with prickly that if you want to try to ski both Zermatt and Saas Fee in the short time of your visit, staying in Tasch would be a lot easier than staying in either Zermatt or Saas Fee.  Saas Fee is gorgeous too:



Have fun.

D@#% you Bob Peters and your photos!!!! Those make me want to go back so badly
I stayed at the Hotel Excelsior during my last trip there. Our room had a beautiful view of the Matterhorn as well. The cemetary is interesting too.

Wherever you go you'll have a blast. I'm sure you'll wish you could spend more time. This will give you the opportunity to take a trip to Zermatt later when you have more time. I'm jealous, I wish I were going.

You'll be driving through my paternal grand father's hometown on your way. He was originally from Bex in the valley on the eastern end of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva).

An hour and 20 Argentiere to Verbier? Anyone?