Leave snow for the tourists, French resort tells locals
WITH snow in short supply in the Alps, one major French resort has asked residents to forgo skiing for the New Year holiday week and instead leave the pistes to the thousands of British and other tourists arriving this weekend.
The request was made for the 600 kilometre Trois Vallées area, which includes the resorts of Courchevel, Méribel and Val Thorens, and claims to be the biggest ski zone in the world.
André Plaisance, the mayor of Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, the main town in one of the three valleys, made the appeal on Christmas Day.
“We have lots of customers who come from far away and we want to make their satisfaction a priority,” he said, adding that he was making a request and that no local would be forcibly prevented from skiing.
One ski instructor in Méribel said the mayor’s appeal was for show and would make little real difference.
“We’re all far too busy this week anyway to take to the slopes,” said the instructor, who asked for his name not to be published.
Fewer than half of the ski runs were open on Saturday in most of the Trois Vallées area and that is unlikely to change in the coming week.
The forecast there is for sunny days until about mid-week, with the skies then clouding over, but no snow forecast before next weekend.
French, Swiss, and Austrian resorts in the Alps have all suffered a less than ideal start to the ski season after weeks of mild weather melted snow that fell in November. But skiing was reported to be still good at higher resorts such as Val d’Isère or Val Thorens.
The death of a 17-year-old British boy in Méribel after he fell and banged his head on the piste drew further attention to the poor conditions in the Alps.
The resort had not had significant snowfall for nearly two weeks and police believe the hardness of the piste contributed to the severity of the accident that cost Louis Ross, a competent skier, from Blandford, Dorset, his life.