The FIS world cup Telemark finals

The FIS world cup Telemark finals are to be held in Montchavin-Les Coches and La Plagne and they start TODAY!
The programme is as follows:
17th March: Classic sprint event will be held in the Jean Luc Crétier Slalom Stadium in La Plagne Centre. The race involves; giant slalom, one jump, one loom (raised loop of 360°) and one skating section (cross-country skiing technique). First round at 6.00 p.m. and second round at 8.00 p.m.
19th March: Great slalom races in Montchavin - Les Coches. The racing starts at 10:00 hours and takes place on Piste du Chanton, the longest FIS ratified piste in the world. It has two cross-country skiing loops, one going around a lake and the other going through the heart of the village. The awards ceremony will be at 14:00 hours.
20th March: Classic races held in Montchavin - Les Coches again on the Chanton piste. The classic races are similar to the classic sprint but are longer and they have to do two of everything, 2 jumps, 2 loom's etc. Racing stars at 10:00 hours, awards at 13:30 and the closing ceremony at 18:00 hours - I expect there will be fireworks!

World cup Telemark skiing in Kreischberg, Austria 2009

To download a PDF document and read all about the event in detail click here.

New webcam!

The Montchaviin - Les Coches website has a great new webcam. It is located at the top of the Bijolin chairlift and from it you a can get a stunning 360 panorama of several mountain peaks including the highest points in both Les Arcs (Aguille Rouge) and La Plagne (Bellecote 3416m) as well good views of various pistes and chair lifts above Les Coches. It has 16 zoom in points so you can get a close up pictures - great for seeing piste and weather conditions. I've pasted a selection of the close ups below.

The Aiguille Rouge (3226m) the highest point in Les Arcs

The summit of the Bellecote (3416m), the highest point in the La Plagne ski area.

View across to Les Arcs 1800 from Les Coches

The Mont Blanc piste

Pierra Menta (2711m) one of our Les Coches/La Plagne chalets is named after this dramatic peak.

Looking towards the Col du Petit St Bernard, the mountain pass at La Rosiere that leads over into Italy -
closed in winter!

Top of the Dos Rond chairlift.

These pictures were all downloaded at about 5pm French time on Tuesday 16th March. Don't conditions look great? Wish I was there!

Click here to go through to the webcam.

Villaroger - way over the otherside

Well this week I decided to explore the outer limits of Paradiski. Villaroger is small village on the Les Arcs side located at 1200m. Monday being a lovely sunny day and with fresh snow from the previous day, I departed Les Coches at noon. The Vanoise Express is always a marvel and the view down to the valley floor makes me weak at the knees by the height. Once over the Les Arcs side we jumped on the Peisey chairlift and skiied down to the Derby chair - we could of went down to Arc1800 for the Transarc bubble but wanted to stay high for the snow condition was excellent. We did take the Transarc at the mid-station and with no queues we just walked straight on. The bubble took us up and over the Col du Grand Renard, at this level it really opens up Les Arc and you can see a good expanse of the station. I see Les Arcs as having a great beginner to intermediate terrain, with wide pistes, well groomed and excellent signage.
We skiied to the Lanchettes chair and as we progressed to the top we saw a skiier negotiating a tricky descent off-piste from the Glacier du Varet - not advised as a helicopter flew in to check what he was up to. It circled until he was down, at this time of year Avalanche risk is considerable to high in off-piste zones.
The ski down to Villaroger was a pleasure until we hit the Planay red - warning on this one, icey moguls and not groomed. We skiied straight into the village - it was very hot (for a ski resort anyway), I would say shorts and t-shirt weather!. We did make it and as you see Sue (Chalet Castor Host) was soaking up the rays at Villaroger. It was pleasure to take the chair lifts up just to get out of the heat.

Sunshine, Snow, Barbeque and hugging a tree!

Wow, what a week, school holidays really hit france last week with English and French half term's the resort was a hive of activity. The impact on the resort did result in slight waits in lift queues and the top half of the Roche de Mio gondola was closed for a day. All in all a great week weather wise with snow and sunshine. As the start of this week we had beautiful weather on Sunday and Monday but during the night on Monday the snow clouds settled above Les Coches and haven't moved.
Tuesday we saw snow start to fall...perfect weather for a Finlay Les Coches staff barbeque (See photo) with Niall, the resort assistant. Niall took the role as barbeque chef for the day, and being Scottish the weather was not a problem.

Skiing this week has been great at the start of the week with going to one of my favourite areas, the glacier, with perfect conditions. But as the weather turned to a white out on Tuesday - the tree runs just above Les Coches where the perfect area to play, fall and hug a tree. Yes, as I hit a bump one ski flew off and the other one stayed on, with what I would say was skill (others would just laugh) a tree saved me from a fall - my natural instinict was to hug the closest tree. Dont send me down first when skiing through the tree's!

Paradiski and school holidays

You can really tell that school holidays are in full force in France. The resort is handling the influx of people with a few lift line's here and there and the usual afternoon surge to get home on the Arpette chair from Plagne centre, it seems that Paradiski is up for the crowds. The blue runs are a little crowded with novice skiers and children but I say head for the tree's and piste's less travelled.
I stayed close to Les Coches today and took a few route's that took me in to the tree's around the Les Coches red piste. This morning was as blue as can be but about lunchtime high clouds started to move in - this must be the forecasted light snow for this evening and tomorrow.
On one of my runs I popped out just before Chalet Pierra Menta and Chalet Foret, I took this picture from the piste and you can see a little path forming to ski to the doors of the chalets.

Go to the Glacier

Well I hadn't done much of Bellecote so yesterday being as nice as it was, I headed for the glacier. We went up at noon and took the usual route up and over to Belle Plagne, as we got higher you could see low cloud coming in to the valley. We took the Roche de Mio telecabine up then ventured into the cute Bellecote telecabine. It ia always a great view as you get higher and higher also the artwork on the telecabines is always a sight to see (my favourite's are the pirate ship and the aquarium). The glacier had just opened at 12.30ish so it was a buzz of excitment for fresh tracks and the off piste in up there is unlimited. We took the Traversee 2 man chair up even higher and the view of Mont Blanc is a sight to see, bathed in sunshine and clearly the highest mountain around, however the little 2 man chair makes you think back to another era of skiing.

The Glacier offers it all - blue, red and black runs and of course a lot of offpiste. The red la Combe piste is great if you want to do some 'not so extreme' off piste to the Chalet de Bellecote chair. I recommend the Bellecote for everyone, the skiing is spectacular and the views on a clear day is worth the journey up.

Dont be fooled by the weather however - apparently Les Coches was in cloud from 1pm and we had lovely sunshine on the Glacier all afternoon.

Today was just Magic

What a great snowfall we have had today. Snow started to fall just after breakfast and didn't let up to the early evening. Skiing wise it was a little hard, snow kept attached itself to my goggles as soon as I would wipe it away. The piste was like being off-piste with powder all around - it was just magic. Well as the snow easied this evening I just couldn't help but get amongst it - snow angel and all.















Also this week in Les Coches- Montchavin we had St Agathe's Day - which involved the blessing of the ski's and boards for the season, torchlight descent from ESF, fireshow, big air ski jump and not to forget the BIG tartiflette. Well as cold as it was locals and visitors came out to join in with the festivities and Vin Chaud. See picture below of Sue from Chalet Castor warming up by one of the fire logs which formed a circle for the ski blessing.
Well forecast is that there is more snow to fall next week.....Bon ski everyone.