My company Ski Adventures is an independent chalet holiday company in Les Arcs Paradiski, in the French Alps. For over 15 years we have welcomed thousands of guests to the the magic mountains of Les Arcs. This blog contains my views and ideas about life here, in the resort and in the valley town of Bourg St Maurice, and wider views about the ski industry generally.
Over the years I have realised that a lot our our chalet guests are also passionate about other sports and activities, and mountain biking often crops up as one the most popular summer pursuits. In the last 10 years Les Arcs has been making serious efforts to make the resort a real Mecca for all kinds of MTB enthusiasts, echoing the 'something for everyone' ethos of the winter programme. Now we have over 200km of trails, including some epic forest runs (the Malgovert forest beside our chalets has turned out to be ideal terrain in an otherwise largely un-visited environment), a couple of parcs and trails for families to enjoy. Several of the main lifts are adapted for the uplift of riders and their bikes, including Cachette, Transarc and the Aguille Rouge cable car - fancy riding a bike on a glacier!?
Steep-sided single track at Arc 2000
This year we decided to set-up a mountain biking holiday programme for the 8 weeks period when the lifts run, based at our chalet L'Aguille Grive at Courbaton (Arc1600). This chalet seems ideally placed, as it's virtually on the 'mythical' No.8 forest trail (8.2 km and 810m vertical), and only a few hundred metres from Cachette and the funicular, which is a vital cog in the MTB uplift network. The fabulous views across the massif de Beaufourtain, plenty of space for bikes and barbecues, the sunny hot-tub and comfortable en-suite rooms seem to be exactly what the biking fraternity need after a hard day in the saddle (or sometimes out of it!). And so Arcabike.com was born, and we are taking bookings for the 8 week period from Saturday 2nd July to Saturday 27th August 2016. There are also plenty of other things to do in Les Arcs during the summer season, ranging from the chamber music festival to golf and archery. This was all part of the original thinking behind Les Arcs, but now as there seems to be increasing interest in activity-based alpine holidays the prescience of its founders is paying off. Les Arcs was recently features as one the top 10 best resorts for mountain biking in the Alps.
