Travel: Skiing / Top 20 Resorts: Val Thorens
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.I LEARNT to appreciate what good snow can do for a chap's skiing in Val Thorens. Imagine: you are a third- year skier staying in Meribel, struggling on pistes that alternate between morning ice and afternoon slush. Your tour guide persuades you, against your better judgement, to make the trek (as it then was, before the Plattieres gondola) via Les Menuires to Val Thorens. You are rewarded with the best half-day's skiing of your short skiing life. You may not have been hooked before, but you sure are now.
At 2,300m, Val Thorens is Europe's highest resort; its slopes go up to various points around the 3,200m mark; some face west or even south, but the best face north. It would be surprising if these slopes did not offer good snow, and they do. The setting is treeless, of course, and the resort is all- new. But it has a vaguely village-like structure and offers skiing from the door, and the better hotels and sports facilities are smarter than the norm for a serious skier's resort.
CHRIS GILL'S VERDICT: You could not call Val Thorens a complete winter resort. It is about skiing, and specifically about snow. But it is a less depressing place than some of its high- altitude rivals. And for a reminder of what trees look like, you can easily ski to Courchevel for lunch.
(Photograph omitted)
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments