SkiSpots Les Deux Alpes
Specialist travel guidebook to Europe's largest glacier ski area
by Francis Johnston (Published by Thomas Cook Publishing: ISBN 1-841575-14-3) UK £8.99 US $14.95
Les Deux Alpes (now more commonly written as Les 2 Alpes) is one of the biggest and most important ski stations in France's Isère département. It occupies a lively linear plateau, high between the Romanche and Vénéon valleys on the edge of the wild and beautiful Parc National des Ecrins, at the latitude where the Northern and Southern Alps meet.
In the regional dialect, the word alpe refers to a high meadow; Les Deux Alpes gets its name from the fact that it straddles both ends of the mountain pastures between the two nearby parish villages of Mont-de-Lans and Venosc, whose originally separate summer-only farm settlements have now merged into one large, year-round, international mountain-sports resort, strung out along these sun-drenched meadows.
The ski station is consistently at the vanguard of new-school snowsports and has one of the biggest snowparks in the Alps, plus innovative in-bounds freeride features marketed under the Slide Zones banner. The ski area is most famous for having Europe's largest skiable glacier; with high-altitude, snow-sure pistes which are just as busy in summer as they are in winter. The descent from the summit to the lowest piste-accessible point in the domain delivers an incredible on-piste vertical drop of 2220 m (7282 ft), still one of the world's greatest.
Les Deux Alpes is a large and lively town, with over 2000 permanent inhabitants; a figure that swells 16-fold during the height of the winter season with the influx of snowsports visitors, making this one of France's most animated resorts. There is plenty of room to spread out though, since the town sprawls for almost 2 km (1¼ miles) in an uninterrupted strip, edged by the town's base area slopes. It offers a wide choice of accommodation and a large and vibrant selection of bars, restaurants and shops; the resort may have an unpolished appearance, but it does have a discernible soul.
The two parish villages, in their respective valleys below either end of the col containing Les Deux Alpes, have an authentic l'Oisans regional character which is still redolent of times gone by. Both are linked by ski lift with the main resort, accessible on foot by all visitors (Pedestrian Pass required for non-skiers). Non-skiers can also access all of the main lift and piste interchanges in the ski area, which serve as the service hubs for the on-mountain bars and restaurants, making this a good choice for mixed ability groups who will also appreciate the resort's good range of alternative activities and visitor attractions.
More Information:
- Isère region
- Oisans
- Ski Area
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