LE TOURNOI DES 6 STATIONS: Allez La Plagne!

Updated 16 January 2013

This winter sees a new competition coming to the Alps - snow rugby.  Enter Le Tournoi des 6 Stations, which will take place during the rest period of the annual Six Nations tournament.  Official website here, and the latest news, including captains of the teams, here.

Rugby is no stranger to the area.  Tignes regularly hosts beach rugby competitions during the summer, and it is a favourite training camp for Stade Francais.

But this new competition, brainchild of @yanndelaige, will take place in the middle of winter, and indeed right in the middle of the French school holidays.  It is a "new, fresh and original" concept, says Yann.  A melange of slalom and rugby sevens is promised, and stars of rugby (including Marc & Thomas Lievremont, Serge Betson) and the ski slopes (Luc Alphand, Antoine Deneriaz) have signed up.  Orangina and Peugeot have signed up too:

Press Conference in Paris, November 2012

The event takes place between 26 Feb and 3 March, with the final chapter taking place at La Clusaz apparently.  The other participating resorts are La Plagne, Les Menuires, Courchevel, Valmorel and Chamonix.

One of the aims is to initiate people into rugby.  Of the "Top 14", only Stade Francais and Racing Metro are located outside its southern heartlands, so presumably the idea is that the sport has quite a lot of untapped potential.

There's more background here in the official video of the press conference, which include a heroic photo shoot in front of the Arc de Triomphe.

What is worth a look is the official trailer, which shows you what playing rugby sevens with crampons is really like....

Alongside the website, you can follow developments Le Tournoi's Facebook Page.

LES ARCS v LA PLAGNE: Head-to-head

When it comes to Les Arcs and La Plagne, in many ways it really is too close to call.  La Plagne's ski area is very slightly bigger; Les Arcs is (according to Where to Ski and Snowboard) very slightly cheaper.  Both have skiing from over 3000m down to 1200m. Neither is particularly good for non-skiers.  Etc.

La Plagne has to win on its more creative marketing, and they did a good job at publicising their 50th anniversary last year.  More here.

Below are three further areas where I'd put La Plagne ahead of Les Arcs....

1. Loads more mountain restaurants

Cross over from the Peisey side, and the contrast is marked.  La Plagne has miles more places to eat than Les Arcs, and the Montchauvin/Les Coches area seems particularly well served.

2. A richer Tour de France history

The dramatic "it's Stephen Roche!!"arrival on the line in 1987 (in La Plagne) has to beat Les Arcs' claim to fame as the climb which signalled the end of the Miguel Indurain era. Click on the links for more on La Plagne and Les Arcs in Le Tour.

3. A more extensive glacier

The La Plagne glacier is more extensive than its counterpart at the top of the Aiguille Rouge, and was open for summer skiing until relatively recently.  There's investment going in here too, with a new lift for 2012/13.

And here's where Les Arcs has the edge:

1. Historic architecture

Yes, really!  Les Arcs had a "grand plan" which was followed reasonably consistently during the 1968-1980 period, as Arc 1600, 1800 and then 2000 took shape.  It's now got a "historic site of France" label, and you can treat yourselves to tours of both 1600 and 1800.  More here.

Hotel du Golf, Arc 180

2. Easier to get to, easier to explore

Bourg St Maurice beats Aime for having the bigger train and bus station, and of course for the funiculaire direct to Arc 1600.  Connections to La Rosiere, Tignes and Val d'Isere are easy even for those without a car.

3. A Premier League snowpark

La Plagne's park is OK, but the Les Arcs set-up is widely viewed as one of the best in France:

4. Vertical drop

The 2000m descent from Aiguille Rouge to Villaroger gives Les Arcs the lead here, at least in terms of official pistes (there are some pretty long runs down from the Bellecote glacier.....)

Villaroger in April

LES ARCS v LA PLAGNE: Le Marketing

With the ski season approaching fast, it's local derby time.  Which one is best - La Plagne...or Les Arcs?  Here's a first installment....

Setting the two resorts head-to-head, there can only be one winner when it comes to marketing.  Les Arcs 0 - 1 La Plagne.

Let's look at the logos first.  You can still see the original "Les Arcs" logo in some parts of the resort, including on the Varet gondola.  It was replaced by the new version in the early 2000s - and both are pleasing designs....


I am less in love with the ghastly Arc 1950 logo, which lacks any character or subtlety whatsoever.  A bit like Arc 1950 itself, one might say:

Meanwhile, over in La Plagne we have THE classic logo.  On the one hand, it's deeply silly.  But it's stood the test of time, going through various reincarnations, and is a lot of fun.  There really can only be one winner!

La Plagne also wins in terms of having the best website.  

It's not quite as flashy as the Les Arcs site, but there's a lot more there.  Basically it's been given more love and attention, and it shows.

On the La Plagne site, take the "virtual flight tour" under "Guide", to get yourself salivating ahead of your next visit...

Another (non official) site is the excellent www.perso-laplagne.fr  which includes an "exhibition" of La Plagne's marketing through the years, including skipass designs etc here.

 

On the Les Arcs side, there is an excellent website called http://www.espace-arcadien.fr/ which is packed with history etc, albeit updated less frequently.

More on websites of the Tarentaise here.

LES ARCS 2012-13: A Rough Guide

If you're in Les Arcs this winter, here are 10 things you can drop into conversations to impress the locals and/or bore your fellow skiers:

1.  The bond with Bourg St Maurice

It's more than just the funicular to 1600: Les Arcs IS Bourg St Maurice's ski resort.  They are marketed jointly as Bourg St Maurice-Les Arcs, they are part of the same local government commune, and there is a daily commute of workers up and down.  Aime's relationship with La Plagne is similar.  Bourg is not a particularly wealthy town, and the economic impact of departure of the Chasseurs Alpins soldiers during Summer 2012 is a big concern.  The locals are called les borains.  People "from Les Arcs" are arcadiens. Locals over at Peisey are peiserots.

Bourg St Maurice, looking towards La Rosiere

2.  Founded by Robert Blanc

The founder of Les Arcs was from a farming family based in Hauteville-Gondon (just outside Bourg), who spent the summers with their sheep in what is now the Arc 2000 valley.  His dream was to come back and see a ski resort above his home town.  Arc Pierre Blanche (now 1600) was duly launched in 1968.  Robert Blanc was killed in an avalanche looking for lost skiers on the road up to 2000 in 1980.  More here.

3.  The resort nearly went bust in the 1980s

It all went a bit horribly wrong for Les Arcs, and a landslide on the road to 1800 did not help.  This prompted a transfer of power away from Blanc's business partner Roger Godino and land was sold to other developers.

4.  A pioneer of snowboarding

Apocalypse Snow...

Les Arcs always fancied itself as a home of les nouvelles glisses, for example in being the capital of the ski evolutif means of teaching beginners.  The Apocalypse Snow films were filmed in Les Arcs during the early 1980s....

5.  The old ski area around Courbaton

When you arrive at Arc 1600 you will see a dilapidated building on your left.  This is the former cable car station from the "old", pre-Les Arcs ski area.  More here.

6.  Intrawest

Arc 1950 was developed by the Canadian developers Intrawest during the early 2000s.  It is much loved by the Brits and, increasingly, by Russians.  The introduction of the Bois de l'Ours and Marmottes lifts were a direct result of the "resort" opening.

7.  Mountain Biking

The Cachette piste above Arc 1600 is a racing (slalom) course during the winter.  In summer there is a serious MTB descent route down its western flank.  If you're driving up to the resort, comment on how difficult the climb is, and remind your friends that this was where Miguel Indurain met his end during the 1996 Tour de France.

The top of the Cachette

8.  Architecture: a national treasure...

Not everyone loves the original architecture.  But it was part of a broader vision, starting on a relatively small scale at 1600, and moving on to the mass-construction methods deployed in Arc 1800 and later Arc 2000.  You can go on a tour if you are staying in 1600 and 1800, and you can read all about it here and here.

Pierra Menta, Arc 1800 (1978)

9.   Paradiski

The new lift to La Plagne opened in 2003.  Although no-one ever actually admits it, traffic between the two stations is far lower than predicted, but Paradiski must go down as a success in being able to promote La Plagne and Les Arcs as one of the top ski destinations in Europe.  More on the link here.

10.  Local sports

When you drive through Bourg St Maurice, comment on FC Haute Tarentaise, which is based in both Bourg and Aime - two towns together etc.  You may also see the Isere bubbling away.  This is one of the best white water rafting sites in Europe.  On the slopes you may see the Les Arcs' Ski Club training in their day-glo suits.  They are one of the best development squads in France.  The most famous local skier, however, is a "Plagnard", namely Jean-Luc Cretier.

JAMES BOND ON SKIS

James Bond didn't get where he is today without being a good skier.

This clip from On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) credits Zermatt, but there's no mention of this in the Wikipedia entry for the film.

This may be the most famous clip of all.  From the top of Murren's Shilthorn, the Escape from Piz Gloria.  Includes some impressive descending by Bond on one ski:

The scene from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) is apparently (mostly) shot in St Moritz:

For Your Eyes Only (1981), filmed in Cortina, includes the famous but tragic bobsleigh scene - it saw one of the stuntmen killed on the final day of filming.  More here.

This clip from A View To A Kill (1985) includes what may be the first appearance of snowboarding in a Bond film (after 0.46).  Although billed as "Siberia", it was shot in Iceland.

From The World Is Not Enough (1999), here's Chamonix, pretending to be the Caucasus:

Finally, from @coulson_tom, a "mash-up" bringing the whole bizarre set of scenes together:

SKI SEASON 2012/13: THE BRITISH MARKET

The economic crisis has brought with it a sharp decline in the number of Brits on the pistes, and some quite marked changes in where we go.  The clear winner in this difficult market is Austria - click here for a handy guide to the resorts.

The most comprehensive set of data over time comes from Crystal, who seem to be compiling the information on the market in a reasonably consistent way.  Here's the 2012 report.

The headline is that the total number of British skiers in 2011/12 was 894,700, a 1.8% decline on the previous season.  

However, this compares to 1,227,000 in 2007/8, so we are talking about a 27% fall compared with pre-crisis.  Indeed there are now fewer Brits going skiing than there were in 2000/01, when 921,000 hit the slopes.

Crystal's figures show 57% going with an operator, and 30% travelling independently. They also report a decline in the school market, something which @ernalow highlight as a cause for concern in their analysis of the data.

By county, there are some big changes.  Here's the Top 7 in 2011/12:

La Thuile, Piemonte

1. FRANCE: 34.6%

2. AUSTRIA: 27.9

3. ITALY: 15.4

4. Andorra: 6.5

5. Switzerland: 4.9

6. USA/Canada: 4.5

7. Bulgaria: 2.7

And, back in 2006/7:

1. FRANCE: 37.1

2. AUSTRIA: 19.0

3. ITALY: 13.8

4. Andorra: 11.1

5. USA/Canada: 7.9

6. Switzerland: 5.1

7. Bulgaria: 2.8

By my maths, this means that the total number of skiers going to Austria has risen, from 130,000 to 143,000.  Although their market share is down on 5 years ago, France has improved its relative position, and with the Compagnie des Alpes increasingly in charge of the show, and the quality of accommodation still improving, does look ready to hold its own at the very least.

The picture in Switzerland, on the other hand, is quite acute, with the latest release glumly reporting a 30% fall on 2008/9.  See this report from @Planetski, including details - and a promotional video - of what the Swiss are doing to fight back.  The North Americans, meanwhile, are having a terrible time, and investment in infrastructure is now at its worst for years.  Crystal do report, however, that Whistler is doing well.

Aiguille Rouge, Les Arcs - looking towards Tignes

Another way of looking at this data comes from @skipedia, who recently reported on the total number of skier days - this being the metric used more in Europe as a benchmark. This shows a 17% decline since 2007/8, from 8.5m to 7.1m.

WHERE TO SKI? Winners and Losers 1995-2013

The excellent Where to Ski and Snowboard 2013 is now available - it's easily the best guide to resorts, their rude comments about Les Arcs' architecture notwithstanding.

As its name suggests, it's an annual publication, which first appeared in 1995.  A look at that first book tells us which resorts have maintained and/or strengthened their position, and which are on the wane, at least in the British market.

One change, of course, has been in the title of the book - the original guide did not include the word "Snowboard", although there was a chapter devoted to the growth of "Le Surf", as the French used to call it.

"It is estimated that by the year 2000, 

one in three people riding the lifts 

will be a snowboarder"

Not sure if the snowboarder ratio ever got to quite that level; certainly in Les Arcs last year, the number wasn't getting much above 10%.

Back to the resorts.  Then - and now - the bulk of the guide is devoted to chapters on the main destination.  There were more chapters in 1995 than in the latest edition, with the net effect being there are more resorts who have "lost" their individual chapters than there are winners/newcomers.

In France, the winners - each now proudly boasting their own chapter - are Samoens, La Tania and Les Gets.  The losers are La Clusaz, Les Contamines, Valloire, Isola 2000 and Valmorel.

In Austria, the main winner this year is Soelden.  It was in the original guide, but then lost its place, and has now been rightly restored as "Austria's best kept secret", with its 130km of pistes, near-2000m vertical descent and, er, varied nightlife.

Hochsoelden

WTSS 2013 also gives good coverage to the Vorarlberg region.

A number of Austrian resorts are no longer covered in detail - the most notable perhaps being Zell am See, Zell am Ziller and St Johann in Tirol.  Each were mainstays of the ski brochures during the 1980s and 1990s.

Other Austrian resorts no longer covered include BKK, Fieberbrunn, Galtur, Innsbruck and Niederau.

In Italy, Bormio is out, with Passo Tonale and the Trentino region on the rise, each boasting a chapter for 2013.

Finally, Switzerland.  Arosa, Flims, Lenzerheide and Les Diablerets no longer justify a chapter.  The rising star is clearly the Val d'Anniviers, with four pages now devoted to Zinal, Grimentz et al.