Skiing without Chairlifts and CableCars

TrapperChamonix · 27-02-2012 11:38am #1

It might sound a funny question but
"Do you know of resorts where the slopes are accessible by drag lifts only?"
I have someone who loves skiing but won't go in a cable car, gondola, chairlift underground train / funiclar etc.
I remember some years ago that Courcheval 1650 (but not 1850) had a wide terrain accessible by button lifts only. Anyone know of any other?

Overflow · 27-02-2012 11:53am

I'm pretty sure you will find drag lifts at most resorts, though you may have limited accessibility. A lot of smaller resorts for the majority only run drag lifts, with maybe 1 main chair lift.

Alternatively, go to www.onthesnow.com then hover your mouse over the 'Resorts' link in the menu, then go to Find a Resort, select the region your interested in.

A popup window will appear, select countries your interested in, then submit. Then click on the 'Lifts' tab and it will sort the resorts by the amount of lifts they have, you can sort by 'Surface Lifts' to get the resort with the most amount of drag/button lifts.

Fattes · 27-02-2012 12:24pm

TrapperChamonix; Wow now there is a challenge, I know the Ski Club of Ireland has drag lift only accesed terrain

Resorts like Sallbach have a few drag lifts out of the village but, not really an awful lot of terrain off them.

Think you should be looking at resorts were you can ski out of the village or right to the village. The demand for modern lifts has killed the drag lift in an awful lot of resorts.

Best of luck with the search.

zagmund · 27-02-2012 12:48pm

I would guess that you would need to head for the smaller and more 'obscure' resorts to find any volume of drag lifts. At this stage, most of the big resorts in the Alps have upgraded their lift systems to fast chairs and cabins or else they are no longer counted as a big resort.

Last I checked glaciers were mostly drag lifts due to the problems with building large infrastructure on moving ice. However, to get up to the drags you're going to need to be very lucky not to have to use a cabin or other enclosed transport.

I know that you pass all sorts of little snow fields with drags as you drive up through the valleys up to higher resorts. They look like the equivalent of the local soccer pitch or tennis court. If you had a car you could travel up and down the valley checking them out, but you're going to face problems with snow condition and opening times.

We stopped briely in Andermatt in Switzerland in December. I wasn't paying too much attention, but I got the impression there were a lot of drags on the slopes that I could see.

z

TrapperChamonix · 27-02-2012 1:12pm

Overflow: Tx an interesting site and one that may be useful to validate anyone's recommendations. The problem is that the number of drag lifts may be negated by the need to get a chair up the hill in the 1st place. E.G I know Le Tour has a wide ski area available by drags but you need to get a chair lift up the hill 1st. Still I think it may provide a good start.

Fattes: Whats life without a challenge. Once I do find the right access to the hill, I then need to work out what the resort is like and the transport time from the airport

Zagmund: I suspect you are right, but my Courcheval example gives me hope that some of the larger resorts might fit the bill as well. I'd like to ski as well:cool:.

I'll have a look at Sallbach and Andermatt

olaola · 27-02-2012 1:54pm

We went to Anzere about two years ago for a long weekend. Drag lifts all over the gaff!! It was like reverse abseiling. There were chair lifts, but they were out of action for the weekend for some reason. So we had to use buttons & t-bars the whole time. Grand resort - quite small. Long weekend is sufficient. But there are other resorts nearby if you get bored.

Down South · 27-02-2012 3:33pm

a lot of drag lifts in La Foux D'allos - my wife hates them

www.valdallos.com

TrapperChamonix · 27-02-2012 4:22pm

olaola wrote: »

We went to Anzere about two years ago for a long weekend. Drag lifts all over the gaff!! It was like reverse abseiling. There were chair lifts, but they were out of action for the weekend for some reason. So we had to use buttons & t-bars the whole time. Grand resort - quite small. Long weekend is sufficient. But there are other resorts nearby if you get bored.

Olaola, tx for that. Looking at the map, it seems like you need to get a Telecabine (Les Bochonesses) out of the valley before the drag lifts become accessible. Do you think thats right?

DownSouth wrote:

a lot of drag lifts in La Foux D'allos - my wife hates them

www.valdallos.com

DownSouth, that looks interesting. a couple of questions
1. In order to get up to the drags it looks like you need to get a chair (Chauvets) up to the bottom of the drags on the right hand side. I can't work out if it is possible to walk to the top of this chair as it looks like it runs through the village.
2. What is the resort village like?

zagmund · 27-02-2012 6:14pm

Westendorf definitely has a drag up from the town. You have to take it in order to get to the main lifts up the mountain. However, it's really only one drag. It's enough to keep you occupied for a few hours maybe, but you wouldn't be rushing back to it for day two. Also, note that it will be chockers on the weekend as all the ski schools will be going up and down and up and down and up and down before branching off later in the week. But it's definitely one to consider.

z

gaffmaster · 27-02-2012 6:44pm

Interesting!

I've been to Courchevel a couple of times. There is a free bus which serves all the villages from 1300 to La Tania and up to 1850. There are button lifts out of all the villages but mostly serve beginner areas. The button out of La Tania has a few nice runs back down to the village.

If you are a decent skier you can ski down from above 1850 all the way to La Praz (1300) then get the bus back up. (Although they are irregular and time consuming). Its a red run and it gets icy. It'd also be free!

Have a long look at the piste maps of any resort you might be considering. Here's the Courchevel map. http://www.courchevel.com/img/plans/plan_pistescourchevel.pdf - check out the two very long drag lifts (teleski difficile) out of la tania.

Otherwise... Heliski!

micko123 · 27-02-2012 9:04pm

I remember Les Houches having many drag lifts. Really long ones if I can recall.

micko123 · 27-02-2012 9:05pm

I remember Les Houches having many drag lifts. Really long ones if I can recall.

olaola · 28-02-2012 9:06am

TrapperChamonix wrote: »

Olaola, tx for that. Looking at the map, it seems like you need to get a Telecabine (Les Bochonesses) out of the valley before the drag lifts become accessible. Do you think thats right?

Hm, I think you're right. This is going to be tricky! They defo wouldn't do one trip in the telecabin to get up?

zagmund · 28-02-2012 9:36am

There are always ways up the mountain other than taking lifts. There are taxis up to the lower stations and then skidoos up higher. Obviously most people don't take them since there are lifts which are included in the pass, but I've certainly seen taxis dropping off in a number of resorts.

There are also hotels up the mountains all over the place - they either have their own little mini-shuttle or else they work with the local taxi companies.

I'm not saying it would be cheap to take taxis all the time, but it's definitely workable. You might try contacting a few hotels (or tourist offices) at random and ask what they can do to facilitate your situation. I imagine most of them would be able to work something out.

Here's one for example in Westendorf - http://www.skiwelt.at/en/sommer/info/berggasthof-maierhof.html. The description says that it's a 20 minute walk from a lift, but as you can imagine they don't actually trek 20 minutes every morning with the fresh food, sheets, etc . . . it's serviced by road and/or skidoo.

z

Down South · 28-02-2012 10:16am

TrapperChamonix wrote: »

Olaola, tx for that. Looking at the map, it seems like you need to get a Telecabine (Les Bochonesses) out of the valley before the drag lifts become accessible. Do you think thats right?

DownSouth, that looks interesting. a couple of questions
1. In order to get up to the drags it looks like you need to get a chair (Chauvets) up to the bottom of the drags on the right hand side. I can't work out if it is possible to walk to the top of this chair as it looks like it runs through the village.
2. What is the resort village like?

You can walk/drive to top of chauvets (btw chauvets is very tame as it serves the green slope). That gives you access to Ubac, Signal or tarde. If she can bear the chair up Vescal, there are further runs served by Crous I&II. All these runs are red. There are beer keg cages 'LA Chaup' which are very tame and open up a few of the blues.

The village is quite and family orientated. Apres Ski would be tame. Nice restaurants. OVerall very friendly and very french (no tour operators). I go there every year and like it.

TrapperChamonix · 28-02-2012 10:25am

Ha Ha, I thought this would poise a nice little problem for everyone, but the boarders.ie have responded brilliantly. Tx for all the advice / suggestions

Zagmund: Skidoo is an option, I'll keep it in my back pocket in case other options don't work.

gaffmaster: Courcheval is a possibility, though I would be leaning more to skiing out of 1650 than La Tania. Otherwise the other half gets completely isolated from the rest of the party. But its an option to vary the week all right.

Micko: Its funny I go to the Chamonix Valley every year and had looked at Le Tour but not considered Les Houches. Looks good option. I'm in Argentiere in a couple of weeks so, I'll take an afternoon and check it out.

The other option I found is Megeve. Definitely accessible. Anyone any feedback regarding the resort / skiing. We are a mixed group with Kids and abilities going from beginner to advanced.

So my options in no particular order are

Courcheval 1650, 1850 and La Taina
Les Houches
Megeve
Valdallos

Given this is for 2013, I've lots of time to research

TrapperChamonix · 28-02-2012 10:54am

Down South wrote: »

You can walk/drive to top of chauvets (btw chauvets is very tame as it serves the green slope). That gives you access to Ubac, Signal or tarde. If she can bear the chair up Vescal, there are further runs served by Crous I&II. All these runs are red. There are beer keg cages 'LA Chaup' which are very tame and open up a few of the blues.

The village is quite and family orientated. Apres Ski would be tame. Nice restaurants. OVerall very friendly and very french (no tour operators). I go there every year and like it.

That's interesting looking at the map, it looked to me that Vescal was a drag lift. You think it's a chair. Probably shows the value of me checking directly with the resort that the Piste Map is accurate and up to date.

p.s. I like the sound of beer keg cages, though my wife might not.

Down South · 28-02-2012 3:03pm

TrapperChamonix wrote: »

That's interesting looking at the map, it looked to me that Vescal was a drag lift. You think it's a chair. Probably shows the value of me checking directly with the resort that the Piste Map is accurate and up to date.

p.s. I like the sound of beer keg cages, though my wife might not.

vescal is a chair -and a long one

Mmmm_Lemony · 29-02-2012 8:52am

You could always do the A-Team trick and give him a glass of milk.

TrapperChamonix, I ain't gettin on no chairlift fool!

hans aus dtschl · 29-02-2012 11:10am

Could snowshoe/hike up. Tends to have the best access to terrain that way anyway...though I'm assuming someone who avoids chairs, funiculars and gondolas won't be terribly into hiking some far off peak...

robinph · 29-02-2012 10:48pm

Most places are going to have very limited terrain available if you are only using surface lifts. Walking up with some skins and touring skis would be your only other option to get anywhere interesting. Lot of hard work though:

Fattes · 29-02-2012 11:01pm

Oh why would you reccomed touring!

Have just posted this video touring is a very specific type of skiing the only comparison I can give is its like Marathon running! Only for the insane

am i bovvered · 01-03-2012 1:31am

Why not try to solve the problem.
My wife had a big flight and height fear, really affected her in a big way. We got to the stage we would try anything, she went for hypnotherapy and believe it or not it worked !!

Skiing without Chairlifts and CableCars

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