Meribel, January 2006.
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It was back to the French Alps for my January 2006 trip to the three valleys. My holiday began in a mad rush trying to meet work deadlines. I worked until dawn on Thursday and then straight through Friday night, which meant I was pretty punch-drunk by the time the taxi arrived in the wee hours of Saturday to take me to Manchester airport. It didn’t matter much as I had nothing to organize for this trip. The brothers Dobson and the nice people at Neilson had taken care of everything. By noon on Saturday I was nodding off on the coach as we set out on our transfer from Lyon to Meribel. I awoke an hour or so later and was confronted with a fantastic view of Alpine cliffs, rising almost sheer out of the valley to loom over the little alpine towns. As we made our way down the valley, the giant relatives of these peaks, covered in snow began to emerge out of the haze.
After a transfer of around two hours we arrived in Meribel. The resort was pleasant enough, though the scenery wasn’t as spectacular as Val D’Isere, though where is? Our apartment in the Les Ravine complex turned out to be much the same as every package Ski holiday I’ve been on: basic and just a *little* too small, though it had a nice balcony with a good view of the mountains. We spent the rest of the first day finding our way around the village and collecting our gear. The equipment we hired in Meribel didn’t seem as good as most resorts I’ve been to. The boards were mostly budget brands and a few of our party had trouble with their bindings on the slopes. The facilities in Meribel were good but seemed heavily geared towards chalet holidays and self-catering, with lots of small bakeries, patisseries and specialist food shops as well as a twice weekly market. Conversely, there were only perhaps a dozen or so restaurants in the village, far fewer than most resorts of the same size. If you’re eating out on a budget, I’d recommend Bar Cactus (Mexican) which has house wines starting at £6 per bottle and Refuge, which does a good line in Pizza from around £8. If you fancy slowing things down, the intimate Fifty/50 is worth a visit, as it the atmospheric Evolution.
Early next morning after fresh croissants and orange juice cleared my tired and fuzzy head, we hit the slopes. It hadn’t snowed for two weeks, so the boarding was hard and fast at first as we headed over into the Menuire valley, then back up towards Val Thorens. Val and Menuire were both pretty little resorts, sitting much higher on the mountain than Meribel, though neither was quite as attractive. On day two we struck out in the opposite direction towards Courcheval, via a pleasant red run called Croix. I’d recently read an article in The Independent which described this as one of the best runs in the three valleys, and I can see why. Unfortunately, there must be a lot of Independent readers out there because the slope was packed! I found Courcheval to be the polar opposite of the Scandinavian resorts I’ve been visiting lately. The town was big and lively, the runs were huge and teeming with people, though the overall effect was perhaps a little charm-less. Day two finished on a high as we descended back into the Meribel valley, though due to the lack of snow a few rocks had started to appear through the mostly well-groomed slopes. Fortunately as we returned to Meribel, it began to snow…
The next day we awoke to six inches of fresh powder, which put a smile on all our faces. The upper slopes were in white-out conditions with near zero visibility for most of the day, so we contented ourselves with enjoying the powder lower in the Meribel valley, particularly on the runs down from Altiport, which despite their gentle gradient offer some fantastic off-piste with natural jumps, particularly along the Lapin run. The fourth day provided another foot of fresh powder and the weather on the upper slopes improved, so we headed back over into the Courcheval valley and then down towards La Tanya, which was perhaps the prettiest, though smallest resort that we visited in the three valleys. The powder remained good throughout the following day despite the brilliant sunshine and we spent some time on the lower Courcheval runs. By the last day, however, the sun and heat was taking its toll on the slopes and so we struck out to find the ‘fourth valley’ Orrell, which reputedly has some of the best powder. By the time we arrived there was very little powder left, but getting there was great fun as it meant a descent down a hard black with a good variety of terrain, from narrow passes to broad steep slopes covered in choppy powder. By the time our transfer back to Lyon arrived on Friday, I was happy but completely exhausted. Where to next I wonder…