Tignes angst ... the last resort
Andrew Davies handles the challenges of too much snow, and his enthusiastic kids, in a virtual white-out
By the end of my first day in the French resort of Tignes I’m already starting to wonder if there is such a thing as too much snow.
Days of continual snowfall have transformed the landscape of south-eastern France into a winter wonderland – though it’s rapidly becoming impossible to see anything.
The Alpine resort of Tignes sits at 7,000ft, well above the treeline, leaving the eye with little to latch on to but a nebulous white haze.
You hear of Antarctic explorers going snow-blind and getting lost in a blizzard, and I think I’m starting to suffer from the same problem midway through my first run. I hurtle down the slopes and feel as if I’m being gently wrapped in cotton wool as the swirling eddies of snow cocoon me.
It’s a strange sensation, and soon I’m gripped by the fear that I have no idea which way the horizon is, or even where the piste ends, and I might easily find myself flying over one of the terrifying precipices.
It’s my own fault really, after I decided to take the family in peak season in mid-February to catch the highest monthly snowfalls. It’s much more expensive at this time of year as you’re paying for the privilege of the snow, but the trick is to avoid the school half-term break in February. We’ve taken the law into our own hands and the kids, Marlowe and Kitty out of school. Feeling a little guilty, they are keen to remind us, they do spend hours with teachers every day– their ski instructors I’ve never seen them so enthusiastic about lessons. Marlowe even tries his basic French at the kiosk selling tickets for a scary new toboggan ride down the side of the mountain, but luckily he’s too small for the Pala’fou, the latest in apres-ski activities in Tignes.
We watch as the toboggans come barrelling down a track – it looks like the kind of terrifying event they’ll be using to frighten the celebrity contestants on the Channel 4 show The Jump.
My son makes me volunteer for the run, so I pay the €8 and, armed with only a plastic helmet, mounted with a small light, and a desire to impress my children, I take the lift up into the darkness.
There’s a brief safety talk before the instructor attaches your leg to the small toboggan with a cord to stop it running away from you should you part company during the two-mile track, which twists and turns alongside the piste (even passing through a narrow 40m tunnel underneath ice). It’s exhilarating fun. While the children are out each morning at their lessons, my wife Charlotte and I are free to hit the slopes for a few hours on our own. This is the genius of Mark Warner holidays – which can be booked via Sunway.ie – is they take so much of the stress out of the day by providing a rolling set of options for the children. Our traditionally styled wooden Chalet Hotel Aiguille Percée has balconies facing the frozen lake where we watch bands of shaggy huskies dragging pairs of people swaddled like children in animal furs over the ice. It’s less than a minute to some of the main lifts, and yards from the nursery slopes. One of the great advantages of Tignes is the way the valley joins up with Val d’Isère, giving you simple access to 300km of slopes and 153 pistes. And while there may be such a thing as too much snow, you can never have too many slopes to ski on.