SNOWBOARDING IN LA PLAGNE FRENCH ALPS

If you know us, you would know we are totally obsessed with snowboarding.  Recently we spent 11 days in La Plagne, one of the most famous ski resorts on the French Alps and it was totally incredible.  Check out our video from our trip!

Situated very close to the Swiss and the Italian borders, La Plagne is right on the French Alps and undoubtedly is one of the most famous ski areas in France.  Not only it is a fantastic place for winter sports due to its incredible snow conditions, but it is also home to some of the most spectacular mountain views in the world.

There are 134 pistes suitable for all levels and a total of 225 km of slopes.  The altitudes of La Plagne range from 1,250m – 3,250m.

La Plage Piste Map. Image from j2ski.com

Our favourite ‘Black Run’ on the mountain is “GLACIER” which is at the highest altitude.  This is the spot where you can get the best view of the French Alps in La Plagne.  The snow condition is always going to be great as it is so high up.  Check out our video posted above for some shots of this awesome run!

Are you impressed with La Plagne so far?  Wait until you learn about the whole Paradiski domain!

Paradiski is a massive ski domain comprising 3 large ski areas: La Plagne, Peisey-Vallandry and Les Arcs.  Having a total of 160 ski lifts, 260 pistes and 425 km of slopes, Paradiski is one of the largest ski domains in Europe.  Also, 70% of the pistes are above 2,000m–so it is literally paradise!

Impressive right?

The great thing about being in Paradiski is you can actually ski/board across to the other 2 areas too (you just have to pay a little more)!

Our very good friend suggested we go across to Les Arcs and do the famous Aiguille Rouge run to get a truly epic French Alps experience.  As you can see, La Plagne is all the way on the right side of the piste map, and Aiguille Rouge is all the way on the top left of the map.  Would this be a good idea?

Yes, yes and yes!

Thanks to the amazing technology of 21st century!  The extraordinary Vanoise Express double-deck cable car was built to shuttle 200 skiers/boarders (each round) between La Plagne and Les Arcs over the length of 1,830m and the height of 380m above the valley (that’s crazy!).  Moving at 45km/hr speed, it takes about 4 mins to cross to the other side. AMAZING views as well of course!!

After getting off the Vanoise-Express cable car, it still took us about an hour to get from Peisey-Villandry to the main Les Arcs ski station at 2,600m.  This is a great place to stop to refuel your body with food, beer and hot chocolate!  Though our advice is to not stop for too long, as this really is only the beginning of your day in Les Arcs!

A view from La Creche cafe at Arcs 2600

We got our priorities right 😉

Then, it took us another hour to get to Aiguille Rouge, the highest and most famous piste of Les Arcs.  This is the the reason we went all the way to Les Arcs.

The wind speed was up to 50 km/hour, we were fortunate to get up there as occasionally the cable car won’t run if the winds get too high!

Here is a quick video from our time in Les Arcs and Aiguille Rouge

Here is the view from the top of the Aiguille Rouge piste at 3,226m above sea level.

Aigulle Rouge piste starts with a 8km vertical drop with epic views of the French Alps.  The end of the piste also extends further down into the ski village at the bottom.  If you go all the way from the top to the bottom, it’s a total of approximately 16km.  This definitely is a thrilling thing to do if the snow condition is amazing.  When we were there, the bottom half of the runs were sticky and slushy, and we both wished we stayed on higher grounds and took  advantage good snow.. so maybe ask around before you go for the whole 16km experience. =)

To view our Experience post on Aiguille Rouge and a video of the awesome run, click here: http://www.lifeoutloudofficial.com/experience/aiguille-rouge-one-of-the-longest-runs-on-the-french-alps-les-arcs-france

Another piece of advice we would like to give, is to never underestimate the time it takes to get back to La Plagne.  The route back was pretty brutal, as it was long (with many slow, flat runs), rather slushy and very crowded (it was also school holiday time… busy!).  It ended up taking us over 2 hours of stressful rushing (after an already pretty hectic day), and we still did not make it back in time to get the last few chairlifts for Club Med La Plagne 2100 where we stayed.  We ended up getting stranded at Belle Plagne and had to wait an then fight to get on a packed bus from the roadside…. and then a final cable car back to to the resort.

Had we not stopped for over an hour for lunch at Les Arcs 2600, we might have made it back in time.  If you attempt to go to Les Arcs for the day, make sure you don’t sit back and relax for too long at lunch like us!

However, overall ZERO REGRETS! WHAT A DAY!!

SO…. there are 3 options of Ski Passes in Paradiski:

1.)  An access to 1 ski-area only

2.) An access to 1 ski-area PLUS a 1 day pass to anywhere in Paradiski

3.) An access to the ENTIRE area of Paradiski everyday.

We got ourselves the 3rd option, but we only spent 1 day in Les Arcs, and I believe the 2nd option might be the best in general for all skiers/snowboarders (option 3 is perhaps better suited for the more intense, hardcore snow freaks).  BUT if you want to just stay in La Plagne with the first ski pass option, you won’t be disappointed either. La Plagne alone is very large and has plenty of good pistes & off-pistes, and the view is beyond amazing!

Ben wearing The North Face Winter sport jacket.  Click HERE to shop Winter clothing and outdoor accessories on The North Face online store.

We stayed at Club Med La Plagne 2100, which really has a PERFECT location on the mountain.  Like all other Club Med resorts around the world, it is all-inclusive, which was very convenient for our snowboarding trip.  This ski-in/ski-out resort saved us a lot of time each morning and evening, and equipment rental was very easy with some great Rossignol models.

The ski-in/ski-out area outside Club Med.

We were too exhausted to take photos of our room (well, more like too exhausted to tidy up our room for photos), but here is the amazing view from our corner suite.

Just after sunset.

View of sunrise from our window.

There are a few Club Med all-inclusive ski-in/ski-out resorts in Paradiski as well as other ski domains.  Click HERE to search for rates and availability.

Lastly, don’t ever leave your room without sunscreen.  Really.

While there are many ways to get to La Plagne, we were advised to fly in to Geneva, as it is the closest airport to La Plagne.  The taxi ride from the Airport to our Club Med took less than 3 hours, and there was no immigration check-point between Switzerland and France (so no time wasted!).

Our flight with QATAR AIRWAYS was from Bangkok with a quick stopover in Doha, and we had the amazing Boeing 787 Dreamliner–Bee’s favourite!

** A few years ago Bee also went to La Plagne from London by car (under the Eurotunnel).  THIS option took almost 12 hours, so she was lucky to have great company on the road!  Another friend flew in to Italy and drove from there–also a good option if you fancy a nice drive on the scenic route from Italy to France!

To view our Experience post on Aiguille Rouge and a video of the awesome run, click here: http://www.lifeoutloudofficial.com/experience/aiguille-rouge-one-of-the-longest-runs-on-the-french-alps-les-arcs-france

Hope you enjoyed this post and that it has inspired you to keep travelling!  Our next snowboarding destination is Hokkaido, Japan!  Stay tuned 🙂