Progress at Alpe d'Huez?

It seems you can't build a new lift anywhere without somebody getting aerated over it. Pistehors - a website I have a lot of regard for - have taken a rather surprising tack regarding the €4.8 million extension of the Marmottes gondola at Alpe d'Huez ( The End Of Extreme at Alpe d'Huez ).

http://www.skirando.com/images/news/...armottes-3.jpg

http://www.skirando.com/images/news/...armottes-1.jpg
The top pylon showing dynamited slot

http://www.skirando.com/images/news/...armottes-2.jpg
Zoomed out view with the Cheminees du Mascle below

http://www.skirando.com/images/alped...002/Pic002.Jpg
Old shot before construction showing the Cheminees du Mascle in winter

Much of the flak is directed at making previously hike-to runs like the Col de l'Herpie, the Cotes du Rivet and the Cheminees du Mascle easily accessible to hundreds of skiers per hour. I say watching hordes of gomers attempting the 45 and 50 degree, 1000 foot vert Cheminees will make amazing spectator sport.

Bring it on.

Just hope they set up a Mammoth-esque webcam eh... I thought that article was slating more their conversion of harder runs into easy, so people can have the big name runs, without having to be any good.

I presume the couloirs will be blocked off to stop your average joe from attempting it... other than the aesthetic scarring (Which, ironically, they're trying to move away from), I can't really see the problems that will be caused...

edg

yeah, i'd presume that they would block access to the general public. so that'd take care of the hordes, but as we know how many peep will duck the rope, that's still a bunch of gomers. it probably kills these runs for the purist, but gives the borderline gomer like me an opportunity for the easy epic. just get up early on powder days. :D

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Originally posted by Ripzalot
...but as we know how many peep will duck the rope, that's still a bunch of gomers...

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One of the funniest/most disturbing things I've seen in skiing was related to just that. It was at Les Arcs, underneath the cabriolet lift, which, as it turns out, is a fun little piece o' skiing.

http://hosting.the-edg.net/edg/cab_top.jpgImage too wide to post...
This is the top, but the shot is a bit poor for showing it (It's actually a crop of a picture showing something else, it's just convenient). The far side (With a track on it) isn't what I (and the people in the story) used for entrance, instead the steeper wall to the left was used. From the base seen, you go into the gap shown, bearing skier's right, onto another flat section, and then to the waterfall seen in the picture below.

http://hosting.the-edg.net/edg/carbirolet.jpg
Image taken from the Arc1950 website, as I didn't take any. Sorry that it's summer. This is the middle area.

Anywho, no one had been down it, and I'd seen it from the lift and decided to give it a try. After my third run, going back up on a lift, a bloke, wearing a sailing jumper and back trousers - which looked amusing at the time, lead his extremely timid female friend down it. If the 'headwall' wasn't funny enough to watch, when they got to the waterfall seen in the picture below there was a choice of taking skier's right (along the grass visible in the picture) into a flat run out, or skier's left down a small drop into a gentler slope than the grass (you can't quite see it on the picture). He chose to tell her to take that one. Now, the grass is quite steep, but it's safe enough if you just stand still and do a little stop at the bottom. The jump isn't quite so, as you are jumping (duh!). So she, with all respect to her sense of adventure, tried to slide over the edge onto the slope. This didn't work, her tips dug and she slid down the rest on her front. When her male friend took the grass route and tried to help her up she wasn't best pleased - I could tell this, of course, through a slap and good scream.

Ahhhh people are funny. Up to that point, no one's gone down it, within 15 mins of tracks being laid, it's a snowy Piccadilly Circus.

Heh. Alpe d'Huez is a pretty bad place to go following tracks too. Like Flaine, people get a false sense of security there and don't often realise that there's some real 100% mortality stuff just yards from the trails.

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Originally posted by Mrs Roo
Heh. Alpe d'Huez is a pretty bad place to go following tracks too. Like Flaine, people get a false sense of security there and don't often realise that there's some real 100% mortality stuff just yards from the trails.

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I just think it's a weird thing to do... if you're walking across a glacier, and you follow a track where someone hasn't fallen in a crevasse, you see some sort of sense - you can't really be worse than any other person at walking. But doing the same in skiing, especially in places famous for good, difficult off piste (though this doesn't really apply in my example) just doesn't make sense to me, though I'm sure I do it from time to time :D

edg

Hi bad_roo,

It is true that the Marmottes III will improve access to the high altitude skiing which is probably necessary to l'Alpe d'Huez's survival but I think the point about the big French stations moving to increasingly emasculated and industrialized ski domains should be made. Over in nearby les Sybelles a whole area of off-piste has vanished under new lifts and runs.

You should post a comment on PisteHors.com, we always like and respect different viewpoints.

cheers,

David

Years ago the French way was to build lifts first and then deal with the environmental/planning backlash afterwards. That attitude doesn't wash these days so the inevitable consequence is developing the ski area you already have.

It doesn't particularly bother me that pistes like the Tunnel have been made easier. Marked pistes are being emasculated right across the Alps, with St Anton setting the lead many years ago when it reclassified its toughest pistes as high mountain itineraries. Having killer pistes is a liability few resorts want.

Accessible back country on the other hand becomes a big sell with fewer liability issues. Although the prospect of the Cheminees at Alpe d'Huez being stairstepped by sideslipping intermediates is anathema to the purist, I figure the Col de l'Herpie will still require a hike. As a glacier, the Sarenne can't really compete with the Mont de Lans/Girose but I welcome this new lift. The number of times I've watched the Pic Blanc tram being put on windhold just isn't funny.

The summit ridge at Alpe d'Huez is a spectacular place but when's all said and done it isn't my spectacular place. Share the love. ;)

http://photos.johnny.free.fr/photos/...Pic_Blanc3.jpg
Gratuitous Pic Blanc panorama shot

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Originally posted by davidof

You should post a comment on PisteHors.com, we always like and respect different viewpoints.

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I registered and logged in but could find no facility to post comments. I think that part of the site navigation needs to be made a bit simpler for blithering idiots like me.