Bending bananas

Coming back to Les Arcs/Bourg St Maurice each year for the winter season always provokes a few emotions: this year it's a mixture of the normal excitement for another winter on this magic mountain (especially now the snow's coming down in serious amounts), and  bit of deja vu touched with a hint of disappointment.

With both chalets filling up this weekend I will have to get ready to answer all those questions the beloved guests always pose: 'How long have you been doing this?', 'What did you do before?' etc. and of course 'What do you do in the Summer?'. Not that I mind answering any of these questions: they can lead to a good conversation and be a way to find out a bit about the guests doing the asking. But it can get a bit tiring sometimes, and some rather cheeky ski instructors of my acquaintance always reply to that last one ' we bend ze bananas'. The guests, not wanting to appear rude suspend disbelief.... 'we bend zem for the European Community so zey have the right amount of bend'. Well I suppose someone has to do it!

The fabulous Cinema Festival  Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs film festival is in full swing, featuring many interesting looking films from the countries formerly making up Yugoslavia. It good to see Bourg included as a venue for some of the screenings, at Le Savoy Cinema and the enterprising Super U Culture media shop. Travel between these two venues and you will pass the sad, unfinished multi-screen cinema project at the new  Coeur d'Or complex. Arguments between the lesees Cine-Alpes and the town council have been raging all year, and finally they've agreed to part company.  So back to square one for another of the towns flagship projects, null points to Mde Poletti (the mayor).

The new cinema, still dark

In fact Mde Poletti exudes more than hint of depression in the Petit Borain town magazine: describing last spring as sad and morose in the wake of the cancellation of the CNSHN project and the consequent collapse the Quartier Bulle redevelopment project (the town's two big projects for the future), she fears for Bourg but promises everyday her 'devotion to duty and to work without ceasing for the benefit of the town'. Hollow words, I fear.

To make up for all this doom and gloom the she and the town council have managed to bring off one highly unpopular developments: introducing charging for the Funicular car-park ( at least €3 a day, and no overnight parking).

How it might look once the locals have had their way!

Some readers might remember this happened also happened about 5 years ago, when local distaste for such a stupid idea lead the the various barriers and gates being damaged, removed or destroyed within a few days. They council gave up, but this time they are back with a vengeance!  There's a even a hut for an employee to sit in, presumably to deter night-time expressions of civil distaste.

It may make a few thousand euros for the town, but only in retrospect does anyone seem to be thinking of the disruption that will be caused by parking sauvage (wild parking). Here at Les Granges I expect the small carpark to be regularly overcrowded and gridlocked by those understandably wanting to avoid paying out. How much more noise, green-house gas emissions and visual pollution is justified by this mercenary pettiness?

Craning in the twin towers

I was also hoping to see a nice  new, bright buildings and the footbridge at the foot of the Funiculaire, but instead there's a small building site and not much else. Apparently the long-awaited refurbishment of the first thing most people see when they arrive here in the way to Les Arcs will not be completed until the end of January. A large crane has been lifting two steel towers into place to provide new lift access to the footbridge, but that's about all that has visibly changed.   One wonders why they waited until the middle of winter to do a job which surely would have been easier in good weather, as well as being ready for the start of the season. Perhaps they've been too busy bending those bananas all summer!

Bonne Saison to all my readers!

New website, new chalet

The new Ski Adventures website is up and running at www.skiadventures.co.uk. It replaces my home-made effort, which has served us very well for the last 10 years.

David Eighteen who designed it and got it organised has really got across what it's like to 'be there', and to 'eat, sleep and ski' at our chalets in Les Arcs. Perhaps because David has stayed with us a couple of times he really understands our product, and as a marketing professional he knew how to convey the right feeling.... and many thanks also to Jenny and Angus (my staff last season) for the many excellent photos, and Dave's industrious technical colleague Colin Monday.

When you look at the website you'll see that we have another chalet for next season, L'Aguille Grive at Courbaton, ski in/out location between Arc 1600 and Les Granges. Have a look on the new website to find about it.

Meanwhile here's  a great video, it'll make you look forward to winter in Les Arcs even more!

Summer blog break

Rugged countryside of the Morvan, Burgundy's 'granite heart'

It's taken me a while to realise that I'm not going to write any blog posts about Les Arcs during this hot, sticky summer! I get my ideas and inspiration from things I see around me and read locally, and as I'm now 400km in the Morvan area of Burgundy (the place I call home) Les Arcs seems so far away.....

Traditional Burgundy produce just before cooking....

But Im already looking forward to December and the new season. The chalets are already filling up nicely (new website about to go live with details of my new chalet at Courbaton) and plenty of plans are being made. Next season should provide plenty of controversy and stimulating debate in Bourg St Maurice, mostly along the lines of 'what the hell are we going to do next now all our major plans and projects have failed or been scrapped!'. But we do have a newly renovated Funicular station (and the Elephant & Castle-style footbridge) to look forward to.

So I'm  whiling away the long hot jours d'été by preparing a new blog, Living in the Morvan. It's all about this remarkable and relatively unknown time-warp area of central France, it's terrain, customs, legends and people. I'm trying to get a good stock of posts written before it 'opens', so watch this space....

Many thanks for everyone who has read and followed my Les Arcs blog so far - I can promise lots more exciting posts next season.

"It's a really wonderful sport", said Margaret Thatcher

MT on skis in the 1960s

There can't be much about Margaret Thatcher's life that hasn't been thoroughly written about in the days since her death. Although I am one of those who virulently opposed her ideas, policies and all that she stood for, she eclipsed most of my adult life from leaving university to the creeping decay of middle-age. However, I was fascinated to find that MT was a keen skier. She was introduced to the sport by her millionaire husband Denis, who regularly sojourned in Switzerland when the  going got a bit tough in the business world.

MT hated foreign travel and especially holidays (she famously came back from a 10-day trip to Corsica after 4 days saying she had 'done' the island and was missing work), but she was prepared to overcome her dislike of 'abroad' to enjoy skiing holidays, and to enable her twins Carol and Mark to develop a passion for the sport. Lenzerheide, in the Graubunden area of Switzerland, was a favourite destination. 

Carol and Marco  in 1996

Carol became an accomplished skier, and for a time worked as a ski journalist.  She's been in an 'on-off' relationship with Swiss ski instructor Marco Grass since 1992, and lives part of the time with him in Klosters.

MTs enthusiasm for skiing appears to have been at its height in the early 1960s, before the pressures of opposition, government and eventually the premiership were to dominate her existence. She attended the opening of Britain's first dry ski slope, at Battersea Park in London in December 1962. The occasion was presided over by her friend the hotelier and restauranteur Charles Forte. Despite being a good skier himself he didn't actually ski down the bakelite slope on that opening day:  instead he persuaded Mrs Thatcher to share a toboggan for the 60ft descent.

MT with Charles Forte on Britain's first dry ski slope

The picture, from the London Evening News, shows MT actually appearing to enjoy herself!
She told the Evening News reporter:

“Last year the children were eight and we decided it was time they learned.  Now we are all tremendous enthusiasts, in fact we are spending Christmas in Switzerland this year."

"It will be my first Christmas away from doing the turkey and all that sort of thing. It's a really wonderful sport.”

Mrs. Thatcher's period as British prime-minister coincided with rapid growth in the winter sports industry, notably with the emergence of the independent chalet operator (largely in response the widespread customer dissatisfaction with the winter sports packages offered by mass tour operators like Clarksons and Swan Holidays, who were only really concerned about getting extra profit out of their aeroplane fleets). Crystal Holidays was started in 1980, and went on to be the largest 'chalet holiday' operator, largely defining the chalet industry that we know today.

MT seems to have lost interest in skiing as her political career accelerated, and the savage spending cuts of the 1980s saw an end to funding for professional competitive ski training that has never been redressed.

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There's a wonderful Pathé newsreel video of the opening of the Battersea Slope, including a few jumps and tricks. Didn't they dress well in those days! 
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/indoor-ski-slope-at-battersea-park

Many thanks to my friend Robert Balchin (the man who introduced me to skiing!) for digging out MTs words about skiing.

Avalanche tragedy: could your lift pass save your life?

location of fatal avalance, 2 days earlier

Everyone in and around Les Arcs was deeply shocked by the death of a 41 year old Russian skier who was avalanched on the Grand Renard piste  above Arc 2000 on March 30th.  She was skiing with her husband, child and an instructor when an avalanche, some 50m long and 15m wide spontaneously released from the steep slope above the piste. The avalanche was only 1.5m deep, but the heavy, wet snow pulled her over and dragged her under. 20 rescuers were soon on the scene, and she was discovered alive half an hour later, in a state of cardiac arrest. She was helicoptered to Grenoble CHR, where tragically she died the following morning.

Avalanches on the piste are perhaps the event most feared by ski resorts, who employ dozens of people and spend lots of money on a variety of techniques and methods whose aim is to release safely any accumulation of snow that could threaten the resort, the pistes or the skiers below. Strangely, hearing the distant booms and bangs of avalanche release at breakfast time in the chalet is invigorating: it means plenty of fresh show has fallen during the night, and it's also reassuring to know the resort is already being made safe by the pisteurs.

Gasex avalanche release system

Permamanet 'Gasex' (uses compressed gas to cause an explosion, triggered remotely) and 'Catex' (transports dynamite on wires to specific location where its detonated) installations ensure that snow is swept safely from the gullies, cliffs and slopes known to pose avalanche danger. A skier on a piste in a ski resort has a reasonable right to expect safety from natural hazards, in the same way that someone in an city park is protected from traffic and other potential dangers such as unsafe trees. That's why a fatal on-piste avalanche soon passes into the hands of the judiciary: the Magistrates Court in Albertville immediately began an inquiry by questioning those responsible for piste safety and sending an expert nivologist to ascertain whether the avalanche could, or should, have been prevented. If it turns out to be the case that it could have been prevented, a criminal prosecution could ensue. I suppose in that case the Russian woman's relatives would  be able to press a civil case for negligence and expect substantial damages....

Aftermath of St Francois avalanche last season

Thankfully, such accidents are incredibly rare. Last season, according to the annual Pistehors avalanche survey there were 23 avalanche death in France, in 15 separate incidents. None of these happened on piste. The type of avalanche which occurred on Grand Renard was described  as a 'wet snow slide' release, which are notoriously difficult to predict and impossible to pre-release by the methods described above. This is the same type of avalanche, typically occurring later in the season when temperatures rise, that destroyed an entire chair lift in St Francois de Longchamp last season (fortunately no casualties due to the brave and timely actions of the lift operator) and took the life of Les Arcs founder Robert Blanc in 1980.

Piste skiers can't be expected to carry an ARVA (avalanche transceiver which transmits the location of a buried skier and enable sesrchers to detect and localise that transmission signal), or the attendant probes and shovels without which the ARVA is fairly pointless. Anybody, however, who goes off the piste at all (even staying within sight of the piste) should have an ARVA and know how to use it. Les Arcs has an 'Avalanche Park' at the Col de la Chal (top of Transarc Lift) where a pisteur will train you for free to use one correctly. I often point out to my guests that apart from increasing the chances of surviving an avalanche yourself,  you are also reducing the risk to those who come to rescue you (often amounting to dozens of people) who will be placing themselves in a potentially fatal location for as long as it takes to dig you out.

There is also a perhaps under-rated system of 'passive' avalanche safety called RECCO. Based on a system of small reflector devices, that can be sewn into clothes or stuck onto boots, etc.,  it enables ski resort equipped with the RECCO detectors (and almost all resorts are) to find avalanche victims in about the same time as if they were equipped with an ARVA device. This would seem to be the perfect solution for piste-skiers who, in the unlikely event that they were avalanched on piste, would be in fairly close proximity to potential professional rescuers, rather than having to rely on the efforts of the comrades in a more remote location (remember that 93% of avalanche victims will survive if dug out within 15 minutes). Some clothing manufacturers incorporate the reflectors into their products, but you can also buy a pair (two are recommended) and stick them on your boots, like I did with mine and my wife's many years ago. RECCO technology is now included in all Ortovox transceivers as a back-up and it has been adopted by NATO as part of their search and rescue protocol.

Thinking about this made me wonder why the passive reflector technology of hands free lift passes couldn't also be used in avalanche detection. Presumably it works in much the same way, even if perhaps some adjustements were needed. Perhaps the RECCO technology could be built into the lift pass? Detecting the victim's lift pass could also yield other information, like whether it was an adult or child or their age.

Perhaps the time saved if such a device had been present would have been enough, in the tragic case of the Russian skier, to have made the difference between life and death.

Aiming High: review of Erna Low biography

Yesterday at La Thuile, Italy

Unbelievable! After a beautiful sunny day yesterday with blue skies all day today it's been snowing hard at all levels down to Bourg from 9 o'clock this morning. I can't remember a season when there has still been so much snow around (and still falling) at the end of March; the red Granges run to the chalet and the Millerette beginners area still fully functioning and it looks like this could go on to the end of the Easter holidays. We have plenty of availability in the chalet from 13th April, get in touch for an end of season bargain!

As it definitely wasn't a day for skiing (or leaving the chalet at all) I have been finishing reading Mark Frary's new biography of Erna Low, the remarkable woman who virtually created the idea of the 'skiing holiday'and who was responsible, in the 1970s, for bringing La Plagne, Les Arcs and Flaine to the attention of the growing number of British skiers.

Aiming High, describes 'the life of ski and travel pioneer Erna Low' in some detail without getting too bogged down by her numerous friends and acquaintances (including many well-known names mainly drawn from the English upper-middle classes) or the many obscure  Austrian villages to which she took her early  pre-war 'ski parties'.  Erna Low came to London in 1930 to study English literature on a shoestring. To raise money  to visit her family she famously placed a newspaper advert inviting 'young people leaving Christmas' to join 'Viennese Graduette' for a fortnight in Austria (resort not specified) including rail travel and hotel accommodation for £15.

The book gives a fascinating impression of the energy and indomitability of its subject, the driving force behind her quickly expanding ski trip programme. However, the outbreak of war in 1938 meant the end of all foreign travel, so she turned her 'wily sheepdog ability to get things and people organised' to English country house parties, where measly rations would be pooled by groups of like-minded young people seeking to escape the trials and tedium of the war, and maybe by the way to find a wife or husband!

Low was an inveterate match-maker, although she herself  never married despite a lifelong string of apparently platonic male relationships. Mark Frary has uncovered a couple of 'love letters' she wrote giving an insight into the more vulnerable side of her workaholic, tee-total personality.

Erna on skiis

After the war, she effectively combined the 'house party'  and skiing holiday ideas to become most distinctive  and diverse British tour operator. Frary spends a few pages ruminating over the invention of the 'chalet holiday', which clearly resembles Low's product, although normally her guests were expected to cook the food that was provided themselves! In the end he attributes the 'catered chalet idea' to her rival Colin Murison-Small, but I was surprised that he doesn't mention the contribution of her compatriot and contemporary Walter Ingham, despite him being referred to frequently elsewhere in the book.

Jet planes, increasing prosperity and  a 'bumper crop of shining new artificial ski resorts' revolutionised the travel industry in the 1960s and 1970s, with Erna Low struggling to continue with her 'personalised approach' in the face of mass-tourism competition.  Teaching Princess Anne to ski in 1966 combined her rapport with the 'upper class' and her hunger for publicity.  Erna Low diversified into summer holidays (which never made any money) and school trips. The book explains how the introduction of VAT, currency exchange restrictions and the 1967 sterling devaluation disadvantaged Low's 'personal touch' operation in favour of the larger operators like the ill-fated Clarksons.

By the mid 1970s France had become the favourite destination of the UKs 250,000 skiers, and Erna Low became agent for the new resort of Flaine, and later La Plagne.  Frary explains clearly the complicated series of changes of ownership, liquidations and eventual buy-out of Erna Low Travel Services Ltd by its eponymous founder.

A  'master (sic) of reinvention' she then concentrated on in-bound tourism through her Enjoy Britain brand but by the end of 1975 was back in the winter sports market having abandoned the 'made to measure' approach that she had hung onto since the beginning. This didn't last, she sold out again to concentrate entirely on selling Flaine, La Plagne and in the 1980s, Les Arcs. Vigourously promoting these new destinations in every way possible (including touring film-shows and a kind of 'ski clinic' minibus) she helped put them on the map, and created a new product, the 'self-drive, self-catering' holiday package that is still the backbone of the Erna Low brand today.

Erna Low presided over a period of immense change in the travel industry and in the world as a whole. From the pre-telephone days to the arrival of the internet, her principal marketing tool was the brochure, which she elevated almost to an art-form. Writing every word herself in her distinctive slightly bossy style, according to Frary often to 5 in the morning sustained only by a box of chocolates! The book includes reproductions of several of the witty and ingenious covers, many designed and even drawn by Low herself.

In the Epilogue (Erna Low died in 2002 at the age of 92) Frary draws together neatly the threads of Erna Low's life, her extraordinary personality and her achievements that spanned the twentieth century.   The book includes a number of amusing anecdotes and touching accounts of the lives of others who played important roles in her life and business: the painter Francis Bacon was a neighbour in South Kensington, and despite a deep affection they held for each other would sometimes engaging in slanging matches - "you dirty poof!" she would shout, to which he had a stinging rejoinder disclosed by Frary.

There are, however one or two mistakes that make me think perhaps there are probably a few factual errors (Peisey/Vallandry is part of Les Arcs, not La Plagne), perhaps because the book tries to deal with  so many places, people and events. Another niggle is the badly organised bibliography and sloppy index ( which lacks, for example, an entry for the subject herself).

However, Aiming High is a fascinating and enjoyable read for anyone interested in the skiing business, and the world of travel and tourism in general. Mark Frary makes me realise we owe a lot to people like Erna Low, and provokes a few thoughts about what things might be like in another 80 years.

Aiming High by Mark Frary is published by Matador Books (2012). ISBN 978 1780883 540

Catch Cachette!

The last few days leading up to this, the first day of Spring, have been remarkable. Sustained snow fall punctuated by wonderful periods of sunshine - a real mixture of winter and spring weather. The result is a good 45-60 cm of fresh snow everywhere (but slightly heavy lower down), totally re-invigorating the mountain and those who skiing on it! Let's hope it all lasts through the UK Easter holidays, which start on Saturday.

Not yet a cinema, after 4 years of wrangling....

More bad news in the local paper today about the failed multi-screen cinema complex, next to the Coeur d'Or building in Bourg (opposite Intermarché). It was built 4 years ago by the Coeur d'Or developers, MGM, with a grant of €1.7 million from the town. But it never opened as there has been a long-running dispute between the town and Cinéalps, who were supposed to operate the multiplex. They agreed to spend €1.3 million on fitting it out (at the moment it's just a concrete shell) but they either didn't have the money or didn't want to spend it. The latest stage of the row is over the acoustic insulation, which should have been installed during the main build but was somehow left out! The town has agreed to pay for this (a mere €170,000 euros) if Cinéalps  honour their committment to the scheme, but now Cinéalps want the town to pay them €300,000 euros to finish it! What a mess; it's difficult not to feel rather sorry for Mde Peretti (the mayor) as her pet projects fall apart one by one (CNSHN, Quartier Bulle, cinema....).

The only tangible benefit I can see from the failure of the CNSHN project  is that the 'mythical' Cachette piste and lift at Arc 1600 will continue to be available to everyone as well as being used for competitions and training.

The old Charmettes drag, where Cachette is now.

The Cachette piste existed before Les Arcs. Courbaton 1750, the small network of lifts built by the commune of Bourg St Maurice from 1961, culminated in a several long drag lifts starting from near the Beguin Hotel. One of these ascended to the 'plateau de l'Arpette', more or less where the top of today's Cachette lift is  (2170m) .  From there one could ski the trace of the Cachette piste all the way to Les Granges and, with any luck, all the way down to Bourg (nearly 1500m vertical).  In 1967 a new lift called Cachette was built from where the bottom of Combettes is now (near the Arc 1600 ski school) to where the eponymous lift ends now, and a shorter drag lift called Charmettes was erected where the Cachette lift is today (you can still see the trace of it the trees to the left).

Looking up at the Cachette lift...

During the next 20 years various additions, doublings and upgradings took place (and even more very confusing name changes!), until in 1989 the Cachette high-speed (it was then) de-clutchable lift was constructed, the resorts first modern chairlift.  It can uplift 2500 people an hour, in just over 5 minutes, and until the new Mont Blanc lift was built in 2010/11, was the most heavily used lift in Les Arcs. It was opened at the same time as the funicular, to cope with the increasing numbers of local people and tourists coming up from Bourg.  Before the CNSHN project came along (and went away) there was talk of upgrading it, but suspect with the new Mont Blanc lift next to it that will never happen.

'Le Mur de Cachette' can pose some difficulties, even to the Ski Club!

The Cachette piste, described as 'mythical' by the mountain bike fraternity who get to enjoy it in the Summer (used for World class DH competitions), is the only piste in Les Arcs homologated by the FFS (French Ski Federation) and FIS (international) for world-class Slalom events. To this end, it has the resorts densest snow-making coverage, with over 40,000 m3 being pumped on to it at the start of the season to ensure a good, hard base for the the events that generally take place at the end of the season, such as FIS Men's Slalom race on 1st and 2nd April. If the CNSHN project had gone ahead snowmaking would have increased to 56,000 m3, at an annual cost to the resort of nearly €200,000 euros, so that saves a bit of CO2 output as well as money.

The piste is 1740m long and 45m wide, and the steepest bit (know as the often icy 'Cachette Wall') is 29 degrees (averaging 19 degrees). The name, which was taken from the small group of chalets and barns still in evidence above Arc 1600 means 'hiding place', but is probably a corruption of the Savoyarde dialect word 'cochette', meaning small col or pass. Cachette gains a mention in Claudie Blanc's moving account of the last day of her  father Robert Blanc's life*  (4th February 1980), when his brother Yvon rushes up to pisteurs' hut at the top to get a team together to search the road to Arc 2000 for a possible avalanched car and its occupants. It is while returning from this fruitless search that Robert was killed outright by an avalanche near Pré St Esprit.

The putative CNSHN tunnel plan for Cachette

Cachette is appropriately classed as a red run for us skiing punters, but I think it's a challenging piste to ski perfectly from top to bottom, fast but with style (remember all those people watching you as they come up the lift!) because of the subtly varying camber and pitch, and of course the hapless blue-run users who cross it on two occasions (perhaps the CNSHN tunnels weren't a bad idea after all!).  But there no better piste skiing, first thing in the morning after a nice dump of powder, when its normally deserted. Try it sometime, top to bottom with no stops. Breathtaking!

The Cachette piste also makes Arc1600 the best place to be at the end of a poor snow-season: all that artificial snow means it doesn't really melt until June...
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* From the first chapter of  Reve de Bergers, by Claudie Blanc-Eberhart (I have started translating it,contact me for more details) http://www.decitre.fr/livres/reve-de-bergers-9782907984324.html

Links:

http://www.espace-arcadien.fr/r1600cachette.html
http://montagne-cable.legtux.org/reportages/reportage-tsd4-cachette
http://www.remontees-mecaniques.net/bdd/reportage-38.html
http://www.fichier-pdf.fr/2013/03/16/visite-piste-dediee-cachette-ffs-sma-cnshn/preview/