IT HAS BECOME A TRADITION
Every first week of December, without even saying it out loud, my friends and I keep the dates blocked. It has slowly turned into an unspoken rule: this week is for our annual ski trip to the French Alps. Thanks to the national holiday, some years we get three days, other years we are lucky with six, but the plan is always the same. We have been doing it since 2014, and I think I only missed once, back when I was in Taipei finishing college. At this point, it is safe to call it a tradition.
Booking a ski trip early in the season is always a gamble. You never know what the mountains will offer: plenty of snow, barely any, perfect weather or full whiteout. But we never really worry about that. The constant is the group: a few days together skiing, laughing, catching up and, inevitably, a little bit of partying too. Conditions may change, but the vibe never does.
Every previous year we went to Val Thorens. By now we know the place by heart, where to park, where to eat and how to move around. It is the highest ski village in Europe, which made it our safe bet for early season snow. But this year, we felt like exploring something new: Tignes.
Tignes is connected to Val d’Isère, an area we could not enjoy much because many of the slopes and chairlifts were closed. Even so, we were able to enjoy the highest part of Tignes, La Grande Motte (3,656 m), with privileged views of its glacier and of the highest peak in the Vanoise Massif, La Grande Casse (3,855 m), which reminded us a bit of the Matterhorn with that classic triangular Toblerone shape.
Tignes is divided into four small towns: Val Claret, Tignes 2100, Tignes 1800 and Tignes 1550. We chose Val Claret because all we wanted was to arrive, park the car and forget about it until the day we left. With the lower part of the resort still closed due to lack of snow, staying anywhere else would have meant using buses or driving every morning. Being the highest of the four, Val Claret was the obvious choice.
The plan was three days of ski and we had every possible condition. The first morning welcomed us with heavy fog, the kind that makes every turn feel like guesswork, but by midday the sun broke through and completely transformed the slopes. The second day was the complete opposite: clear skies, perfect visibility and great snow that let us ski endlessly, the kind of day that makes you remember why you love the sport. And then came the third day, a challenging one with nonstop snowfall, visibility close to zero and warmer temperatures that made everything wet and heavy. A tough end, but in a way, it rounded out the trip with the full early season experience.
All in all, it was a perfect way to open the ski season: a new resort, good laughs, decent snow and a few stories to bring back home. A great trip with friends, and the tradition continues.