France for Families - Skiing in the Alps

I haven’t skied since well before my daughter Charlotte was born nearly 16 years ago so as I anxiously grab the pole on my way up the ski slope at Arc 2000, it’s the moment of truth: is skiing indeed like riding a bicycle, a skill once acquired never forgotten? Or now that I am no more than a blizzard or two away from my 60th birthday, would my muscle memory succumb to amnesia and my body crumple into an unseemly heap?

Before you can say, “there’s life in the old chien yet,” I am on my way up the mountain. Although making it to the top of an, admittedly, modest slope is no mean accomplishment for someone old enough to distinctly remember Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, the true test – sliding back down – still lies ahead.

My ‘style,’ although dreadfully inelegant, is still thankfully serviceable. To my considerable relief, I am therefore able to handle the gentle blue runs without too much difficulty. Like most inexpert skiers, width is the single most appealing feature I look for in a piste. Providing they are wide enough and there is consequently plenty of room in which to make a faltering turn, most can be successfully negotiated – eventually. From this point of view, blessed as it is with majestic ‘motorway’ pistes, Arc 2000 is an excellent choice. There is a fair number of red runs and, lower down, pretty pistes that lead you through the woods, but the few blacks are regrettably closed because of dangerous ice. Ah, what a shame.

Disney on ice
It’s as well that the pistes are as good as they are because in one important respect, the resort is rather wanting. With its hideous tower blocks, Arc 2000 is a monument to avant-garde, architectural ghastliness. Although its critics liken it to a Disney film set and it’s as artificial as a plastic Christmas tree, the traditional appearance of neighbouring Arc 1950 is far more appealing. The authorities even go to the trouble of maintaining a covering of snow so you can gently ski along the pretty little high street.

While perhaps lacking in aesthetic appeal, Arc 2000 is nevertheless one of the highest, most popular resorts in the French Alps and belongs right up there with Tignes, Val-d’Isère and Val-Thorens. It is blessed with a vast area of reliable snow and the season lasts all the way through until mid-April. With global warming driving European skiers ever higher, Les Arcs, just above the Tarentaise town of Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the Savoie département of the Rhône-Alpes, is topographically well placed to score over more altitude-challenged rivals.

The highest peak in Arc 2000 is the 10,584-feet-high Aiguille Rouge (Red Needle). Nearby, there’s Mont Bellecote at 11,211 feet and off in the distance there’s Mont Blanc, which, at 15,780 feet, is of course the highest mountain in both France and the Alps.

Since the opening of the Vanoise Express cable car in December 2003, it has become part of the Paradiski group of ski-lift connected resorts, which includes La Plagne, Arc 1600, Arc 1800, Arc 1950 as well as Arc 2000. The whole area boasts 106 runs, 54 lifts and 200 kilometres of descent. Because chairlifts predominate and there are so few drags, it’s particularly popular with snowboarders. In fact, Les Arcs is generally recognised as the snowboarding capital of Europe. Although some traditionalists are rather snooty about snowboarding, the two disciplines seem to coexist quite happily here.

As well as snowboards, you see quite a lot of very short skis. That’s because the ESF ski school at Les Arcs is keen on the ski évolutif method where students learn parallel turns right from the start, but on very short skis that grow progressively longer as they become increasingly proficient.

Reluctant learner
It’s 11.30am and I have to ‘schuss’ to Charlotte, who is just finishing her first lesson. Dropping her off earlier in the day, she was as reluctant to let go of my waterproof golf top as I had been to invest in a proper ski jacket. None of her half-dozen classmates spoke English, which will oblige her to work on her conversational French in preparation for her GCSE oral exam scheduled for the day after our return. Even if she doesn’t master parallel turns in a week, she should learn the French for “that looks impossibly steep to me”. She is bidding her classmates a fond au revoir as I slide to a flashy halt next to her unimpressed instructor. Over chocolat chaud, she breathlessly tells me that she’s finding it a little hard, especially hanging on to the rope that carries her up the nursery slope. Being the only one who doesn’t speak the language is also something of a problem as her instructor apparently gabbles on endlessly in French and then turns to her simply to say “benzernees”. Having thoroughly enjoyed my morning, I am now extremely worried that Charlotte isn’t having nearly as much fun as I am.

Although she’s clearly not entirely comfortable on skis and is consequently rather nervous, I manage to persuade her to accompany me up the Saint-Jacques chairlift and down the very gentle blue run that I had earlier selected as being suitable for a complete beginner. It doesn’t work out at all well as there is a short stretch in the middle that Charlotte describes as “unbelievably steep”.

Over a fairly fraught lunch, I start to wonder if this holiday is heading downhill faster than Jean-Claude Killy in his prime. Was it just wishful thinking that my daughter would share my enthusiasm for skiing and incredibly selfish of me to inflict upon her what could easily develop into a seven-day ordeal?

To her considerable credit and my enormous relief, she is willing to tackle the ‘mighty’ Saint-Jacques run again after lunch. She makes a rather better fist of it the second time and does better still the third time. And so the afternoon ends on a significantly more optimistic note than the morning did. That evening, Charlotte and I swap tales of derring-do with the three other families sharing our chalet. Since we left my vertigo-suffering wife in non-mountainous East Sussex, Charlotte and I are a rather abbreviated family. Despite that, and the fact that we have only known them for a few hours, we rapidly bond with our fellow guests.

There are five children aged between four and nine who have their high tea at half-past five while the adults eat dinner at 7.30pm. Although it provided Charlotte with a welcome opportunity to expose me as an uncaring parent prepared to put her life at risk by taking her up unsuitably steep slopes, I am hugely relieved that she is allowed to eat with the grown-ups.

Truancy talk
Each morning the children are taken to their own little ski school where they are taught by an English-speaking instructor. Denied this opportunity to master the mysteries of the parallel turn at a suitably tender age, Charlotte has to return the next morning to her beginners’ class, which is something she doesn’t particularly relish. Indeed, there is talk of truancy in our balconied bedroom before, completely exhausted, she drops off to sleep.

The next morning, revitalised by a couple of croissants, she agrees to persevere with the lessons. While working hard on my own seriously flawed technique, I am worrying whether she is enjoying herself or still struggling. “We went up Saint-Jacques,” she tells me excitedly over a hot chocolate in Chez Eux, which is rapidly establishing itself as our favourite haunt. Clearly grateful for the previous day’s reconnaissance, she talks me through her morning and describes her motley assortment of classmates.

Again we ski together for the rest of the day, fortunately with fewer disagreements than yesterday. A regular daily pattern is thus established of getting up early, breakfasting with the others, Charlotte’s lesson, hot chocolate, skiing together, lunching on crêpes, skiing together again in the afternoon, then back to the chalet for tea with the children before dining with the adults. It’s a nice energetic routine that neatly balances the time I spend on my own, with my daughter and with the others in the chalet, whose company Charlotte and I enjoy enormously.

As we’re both pretty knackered in the evening, the absence of anything much in the way of nightlife doesn’t bother us. The Whistler Bar is the principal hostelry while El Latino Loco (lively with distinctly Hispanic dishes), La Taverne des Arcs (typical Savoie dishes such as tartiflette, fondue and raclette) and two brasseries/ crêperies Red Rock and Chez Eux offer a decent range of food and are not expensive.

By the end of the week, her lessons finished, Charlotte’s skiing has improved spectacularly whereas mine appears thoroughly frozen. On Saturday, our last day, we hammer the pistes together, sing on the chairlifts and giggle on the way down. She is now clearly as in love with the sport as I have always been and talks of doing it again next year as we bid a fond farewell to our new found friends and make our weary way home.

Francofile

GETTING THERE
You can fly to Geneva (which is about three hours by coach from Les Arcs) from Stansted, Gatwick, Edinburgh, Manchester and Birmingham. Or you can fly to Chambéry, which is only about two hours away, from Gatwick Manchester and Bristol.

COST
The cost of one week in Arc 2000 starts at £449 for an adult based on two sharing and includes flights, transfers and catered chalet accommodation.

LESSONS
Five two-and-a-half hour ski lessons cost £92.

LIFT PASS
For adults, the whole Paradiski area is £135 for six days. For just Les Arcs/Peisey it’s £115.

MORE INFORMATION
Esprit Holidays www.esprit-holidays.co.uk Tel: 01265-618300

Les Arcs Tourist Information www.lesarcs.com Tel: (Fr) 4 79 07 12 57

HOTELS
The two principal hotels in Arc 2000 are L’ Aiguille Rouge and Les Mélèzes. The cost for one week in L’ Aiguille Rouge ranges from €348 to €606, while in the slightly more expensive Les Mélèzes it’s €400 to €720.