Construction has already begun on the project

The project’s green credentials have been open to scrutiny and appear to have gained widespread approval. The cables for the new gondola will be made by recycling old cables from disused chairlifts, and the majority of the pylons will be carved from pine trees which already stand along the proposed route of the lift. Methane collected from grazing cows will provide 12% of the power for the new gondola.

The project is expected to take several years to complete but once finished it will link the three biggest French ski areas and enable skiers to cover 15 resorts in one day’s skiing. The combined total pistes in the area will be nearly 1,500km, with an area pass costing a quite reasonable 300 Euros a week.

The mayor of Courchevel, Jean-Paul Mugnier hailed the new development as the key to ensuring the long-term success of the French ski industry: “We have been awaiting a development like this for years. This will confirm that France, and the Tarentaise in particular is the number one destination in Europe for the serious skier. The benefits to the local economy will be widespread.”

If completed on time, the project is expected to be ready for the 2017-18 winter season and is expected to bring almost 500,000 extra visitors to the area each season.

For more information on the project, or if you’d like to know about the resorts the new lift will serve then please call our London sales office

It’s been a while. According to an old pal who still lives in Chamonix and posted on facebook this morning, it’s been 36 days. Some resorts might even claim a longer drought, but what we do know is that the worst is over and that there is fresh snowfall in most major resorts right now. The whole ski industry has been nervously checking weather forecasts, looking to the sky and I’ve seen a few videos of snow dances being performed in various resorts since the New Year. Happily, I’m glad to be able to say the Guardian’s article yesterday, predicting the possible end to the entire season in mid-February is nothing short of a scaremongering fabrication. Even if it didn’t snow again between now and Easter, all major resorts have excellent infrastructures in place to ensure that the vast majority of their pistes remain open all season long thanks to their numerous snow cannons and creative use of piste bashers.

Of course, having to rely on cannons to keep runs pisted for half of an entire season isn’t ideal and if you’ve gone out to somewhere like Chamonix looking for a week of awesome off piste then you are inevitably going to be disappointed if no fresh snow falls for 4 weeks. However, the majority of our clients and contacts in resort have reported that in spite of the lack of new snow, nearly 90% of pistes have remained open and perfectly ski able. You can’t deny though, that a foot of fresh snow is exactly what you would like to read about in the days leading up to your week in the mountains.

Most of the Tarentaise (The Three Valleys, La Plagne, Les Arcs, La Rosiere, Tignes and Val d’Isere) has seen between 20 and 30 centimetres falling this week, and further south there have been even heavier falls with more predicted for the southern French Alps, Italy and Southern Switzerland this weekend. Zermatt is expected to benefit from fresh snowfall which makes me think I might have found the deal of the season. As this post goes to press, we have one room left sleeping two in chalet Aeschhorn A, leaving on Saturday 19th February from Edinburgh, Glasgow or Belfast at just £499 per person. Considering that we’re talking about the most in demand date of the entire season, a top resort and a good quality chalet right in the middle of the village, this rates as one of the best deals I’ve come across. If you can only go away this week (teacher perhaps?) and can get to Scotland or Northern Ireland for Saturday, then this could be for you. I’d even consider getting the train up from London!

Even if there isn’t any new snow where you’re going then please don’t despair and please, whatever you do, don’t believe what you read from lazy, ill-informed journalists lacking in specialist industry knowledge.

If you’d like more information on the deal featured above then you’ll have to be quick, it’s the only room left! If you’d like more information about any of the resorts mentioned or to chat about anything ski-related, please drop us a line or give us a ring at our London sales office.

A Eurostar train makes its way to the Alps

The direct services stop at Moutiers for the Three Valleys, Aime for La Plagne and Bourg St Maurice for Val D’Isere, Tignes, Les Arcs, La Rosiere and St Foy. There are two classes of travel, Standard and Standard Premier. In Standard class you have an allocated seat and unrestricted baggage allowance. Standard Premier offers a larger seat with more room and meals and drinks served at you seat. If you book early enough, the difference in fares between Standard and Standard Premier is minimal, making the latter very good value indeed, especially considering the length of the journey and the added comforts in the upgraded class.

The trains, which are available to book as of 9 o’clock this morning on www.eurostar.com, are provisionally running to the following timetable:

Train times: French Alps to Ashford/St Pancras International, London

Adult fares in Standard class start at £149pp return, which includes unlimited baggage allowance and skis and from £229pp in Standard Premier, including baggage and also includes light meals and drinks served at your seat.

Upon arrival in Moutiers, Aime and Bourg St Maurice, local buses wait to transport skiers directly to all the main resorts and most transfer times are less than an hour from the stations. Although it’s not strictly necessary to book in advance for these transfers, they do get rather busy on peak dates and pre booking is quite simple on www.altibus.com. Once it’s all booked up, you simply need to get to St Pancras around an hour before your train departs to check in, then just enjoy the smoothest, most relaxing method of travelling to the major ski destinations for your last minute ski break.

All information on this post is correct at time of publishing, however we would advise checking prices and availability with Eurostar to ensure your chosen services are available before making your chalet booking. For more information on chalets in any of the resorts served by the ski train, please give our sales team a call.

We are extremely disappointed that Unite, the union that represents the majority of British Airways (BA) cabin crew, has announced that it intends to take strike action.

We are currently considering our response to this strike threat and what action we will need to take to minimise disruption. All our flights are operating normally at the moment.

We will be updating this page with further details as soon as it is available.

We are aware that there is an air traffic control strike currently taking place in France which began yesterday (23rd February) and is scheduled to finish on Saturday 27th February. At this moment we have received no information from any of our tour operators or airlines about how this action may affect any holidays due to depart on Saturday or Sunday.

We are also aware that British Airways staff may strike at some stage over the Easter break. As yet we have received no notification of the dates on which such action is likely to take place and how this action may affect our customers.

At the moment we would like to reassure all customers that any information we receive from tour operators and airlines will be passed to you as soon as we receive it. We would advise that you do not make any alternative travel arrangements unless you are advised that any action is likely to affect your holiday. Unless otherwise advised, please proceed to your departure airport and check in as normal.

Just a very quick post for anyone who thinks they may be affected by the industrial action at BA that has been announced this afternoon. If you missed the news, BA cabin crew have voted to go on strike from 22nd December until 2nd January in a move that is widely thought will bring chaos to anyone travelling with BA over that period. Only around 5% of our customers booked to travel during that period are booked on BA flights, and all of those are charter flights. We do not yet have any information from any tour operators and as such our advice to anyone booked onto a BA charter flight is not to panic and wait until we recieve further information. As soon as information reaches us it will be forwarded to all bookings that are affected.

If you have booked a chalet with us, travelling independently to the Alps with BA, then we recommend that you contact BA with regard to your travel plans. We’re betting it will all be fine.

Plagne 1800 has a new chairlift out of the village: the new Melezes chairlift which runs from the ESF meeting point to Plagne Centre. This then connects to another new chairlift – the Bergerie, arriving at 2184m just above Plagne Villages, which gives access to Plagne Centre and Plagne Bellecote, making Plagne 1800 a much more convenient option for beginners.

La Plagne 1800 - aerial shot with new chairlifts. Photo from www.laplagne.co.uk

For more info checkout our La Plagne resort details or see our collection of La Plagne Chalets.

For those in the know, South West London has always been the heart of the UK ski industry. Obviously none of the big resorts are located here; in fact you’d be hard pushed to spot a single snowflake over winter. However a large majority of UK ski tour operators, ski specialist agents (of which Interactive Resorts are the largest) and organisations such as Natives and the Ski Club of Great Britain are based within a few miles of one another. Needless to say the social scene is thriving, with hundreds of ex seasonaires concentrated in such a radius. Opportunities to gather and reminisce about seasons past, debate the merits of one resort over another and just enjoy being part of what we think is a very cool niche industry are many and varied.

With this in mind, we’re all in for a big treat in October as the upcoming European ski season kicks off with a huge variety of events and parties geared around getting us all in the mood for the upcoming winter.

Today is the start of the Metro Ski and Snowboard Show at Olympia, the biggest consumer winter sports show in the world according to the completely unbiased organisers. Joking aside, the Ski Show is the premier ski industry event in the UK and is visited every year by thousands, industry insiders and first timers alike. The week of the show is peppered with other industry events, like the Ski Club party in Putney and the almost legendary Natives Party this weekend. Natives is now recognised as the website at the centre of the season workers network in the UK after its launch over 10 years ago.

The final happening of the month is not so long standing but is fast becoming the event that people will travel the furthest to see. The London Freeze at Battersea Power Station turns the spectacular derelict building on the South Bank of the Thames into a giant snow sports and music festival for a whole weekend. The giant kicker is built from real snow and the freestyle snowboard competition forms part of the FIS Snowboard World Cup. Music acts like Eagles of Death Metal, Orbital and Calvin Harris also appear on the stages over the weekend. If you can only make it to one event this October, make it the London Freeze.

For anyone snow obsessed enough, if you can’t live out in the Alps then SW London comes a very close second!

The first snows of the new season have begun to fall across the Northern hemisphere and one resort in North America has already opened for the winter season.

Loveland, Colorado

Loveland, Colorado became the first non-glacier resort to open this morning. Arapahoe Basin will be starting its season on 9^th October. Reports of good snow depth have also come in from Sweden and the resort of Are which reported 10cm on its upper slopes earlier in September and released a video today which you can check out here. Are opened its lift system last year on 29th October and it may well beat that mark this year! 

Closer to home and although the only skiing possible in the Alps is on the high glaciers of Saas Fee, Zermatt, Hintertux and Tignes. The latest weather reports have suggested that there will be a dusting of fresh snow this weekend.  Courchevel, still one of the most popular resorts in France will open officially for skiing on 5^th December. If you can’t wait until then, Val d’Isere’s official opening date will be 28^th November. The Scottish resort of Cairngorm has also seen its first dusting of the year, with a couple of inches falling earlier this week, although it will need quite a lot more of a base before any Scottish skiing can happen!  

Most of our chalets will start off on 12^th or 13^th December. A select few will be taking guests in the week before this but the best package deals are the 12^th and 13^th. The Coq de Bruyere in Courchevel 1850 is exceptional value for that week and you could even take advantage of premiere neige lift pass prices meaning a Three Valleys pass sets you back a mere €174 per adult. On all other dates you’d be looking at €232 per adult.

For fans of Val d’Isere chalet Bandire could offer the prefect early season getaway. Only £484pp based on flights from Stansted and we’ll even throw in almost 2 free places if you book the whole thing for 12!

Ok, I know that a few flakes falling at high altitude and the first open resort in the States doesn’t guarantee us a bumper winter, but it just gets me excited. Just the thought of being out there again is enough for me to start seriously considering getting my early season trip booked up.

If you are interested, we have lots of other special offers and discounted prices in most resorts for many different dates throughout the season so please do call us on 020 3080 0200 in our London Sales Office and we will find you the best holiday at the best price.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Alps are a little quiet during the long summer months, locals just whiling away the lazy days waiting for the new snowfall and the hustle and bustle of winter to kick in again in November. But you’d be wrong…

Apart from walking, climbing, glacier skiing, mountain biking, white water rafting, parapenting, kayaking, canyoning and river running there’s one global sports event that dominates the agenda in a few selected alpine resorts. It may only pass through them, or at most make an overnight stop but the resorts spend the entire year making plans.

The Tour de France is said to be the most watched live sporting event in the world. During the three weeks it covers over 3,000 gruelling kilometres through France and over 2 million people are estimated to line the route each year. This year it started in Monaco and also passes through Spain, Andorra, Switzerland and Italy en-route to Paris.

I enjoyed being in France during the first week of Le Tour this year and marvelled at the almost blanket coverage it enjoys. The daily sports paper L’Equipe devotes 8 pages, almost half of its output, to the Tour. French TV coverage runs non stop from 9am until well after the last riders cross the line each day. We weren’t staying very close to this year’s route but toyed with the idea of driving to Perpignan to watch the end of the flat stage 4. After some negotiation, my girlfriend ruled that watching a stage finish didn’t merit spending a whole day in the car!

However the mountain stages into alpine resorts are a different prospect altogether. This year’s stage 15 arrives into Verbier on July 19^th after 200kms in the saddle and the final climb from Martigny will be lined with tens of thousands. As the roads get steeper, the race spreads out and the riders move slower, giving spectators a real treat. Half of our chalets in the resort will be hosting teams, support crews and spectators that weekend! The very next stage passes through Italy and the resorts of Courmayeur and La Thuile before crossing the border to La Rosiere and finishing in the famous valley town of Bourg St Maurice. Anyone who’s ever been to Val d’Isere, Tignes or Les Arcs will recognise it straight away.

If you find yourself with a chance to watch the Tour live, then don’t pass it up. What other sports event can you attend standing within touching distance of global stars like Lance Armstrong, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery and all completely free?