In our last blog entry, we wrote about the holiday industry’s never ending commitment to ensuring the safety of its guests and concluded that, while health and safety is one of our top priorities, those who enjoy the mountains ultimately have a personal responsibility to look out for themselves and their companions.
This is where innovations such as the new iSis app come in. Continue reading “Ski apps to play with before your next ski holiday” »
Val d’Isere is well known for being one of the most popular European ski resorts, but there’s more to Val d’Isere than just skiing and boarding, there’s a whole host of activities and events to enjoy.
Activities
Choose from adrenaline-fuelled activities such as husky sledding, ice driving or snowmobiling. Or if you would rather take it a little easier, you can enjoy a range of activities from browsing the shops, to a gentle stroll taking in the stunning scenery or even enjoy a relaxing massage. There’s something for everyone, for snow sport enthusiasts as well as non-skiers.
If you like walking and hiking there are many different types of walks to challenge all abilities. Glacier hiking will provide amazing views but will seriously test the legs. Or enjoy the views on a winter hike in one of the 24km of marked trails which provide a more peaceful way to enjoy the winter wonders. Another popular activity is snowshoe walking which provides another great work out for the legs. Lightweight plastic snowshoes strapped to your shoes make walking in deep snow so much easier. Those preferring cross-country skiing will take pleasure in exploring the 21km of tracks in Val d’Isere. For more details about cross-country skiing in Val d’Isere read our recent blog on the subject.
Festivals and Events
The winter season always brings plenty of events to Val d’Isere. As well as the events featured here read on to find out more about what’s still to come this season.
Festival Thursdays take place every Thursday night until 2 May, between 6-7:30pm when the village of Val d’Isere is lit up with an array of different coloured lights. Take a stroll through the village to wonder at the amazing ice sculptures and enjoy the street entertainment and music whilst keeping warm and savouring tasty hot chocolate or mulled wine.
From street lights to fireworks lighting up the sky, the ESF, the French national ski school will be hosting a firework festival Tuesday 12 March bringing the slopes alive at night. The programme includes a technical demonstration, a torchlight descent and a spectacular fireworks display.
Music Events
From classical to contemporary there’s music for all tastes.
19 – 21 March 2013
St Bernard Menthon, an old baroque church in Val d’Isere is the venue for the classical music festival ‘Classicaval’. Under the artistic direction of Frederick Lagarde, the programme features classical pieces composed by talented composers such as Beethoven and Schumann. A must-visit festival for all classical music lovers.
23 – 30 March 2013
Later this month, from 23-30 March, The Brits Snow and Music Festival, Europe’s week long winter festival is heading to Tignes just along from Val d’Isere and all part of the Espace Killy ski area (which includes Le Fornet, Val d’Isere and Tignes). The festival features a combination of skiing and snowboarding competitions with live music.
There are more events scheduled in Val d’Isere for April, the yoga festival is from 5-7 April, there’s winter golf from 7-13 April and a film festival from 22-25 April. More information on what’s happening in Val d’Isere to follow soon.
Image credits:
valdinet.com
the-brits.com
LOOK! Le Chardon’s largest ski chalet Chalet Le Chardon is featured on the front cover of the June-August 2012 issue of National Geographic Traveller South Africa magazine.
NG has won countless awards for excellence in journalism covering and exploring the extraordinary on the planet.
Penny, Le Chardon Mountain Lodges
The CairnGorm, Nevis Range and Glenshee ski resorts in Scotland are hosting their fifth annual The Big Spring Clean this Saturday 16 June 2012.
The aim of the event is to clear the litter discarded on and off the slopes during the winter ski season by skiers picnicking, smoking or commonly dropping items from chairlifts. Organised by the Ski Club of Great Britain, volunteers scour the resorts removing the litter and the more volunteers the merrier! Rubbish including cigarette butts, chocolate wrappers, banana skins, plastic bottles and clothing appear across the mountains in the springtime once the snow has melted.
Elsewhere, officials in Val Thorens have estimated that a staggering 30,000 cigarette butts are dropped carelessly under each chair lift during the season.
This littering problem pollutes the rivers, streams and the ground which subsequently endangers wildlife and plants. Toxins from the cigarette butts act as an insecticide that is poisonous. Dioxins from plastic containers damage the reproduction on fish and mammals. Therefore the importance of eliminating this litter is great.
Commonly dropped items can take years to decompose:
Glass bottle: 4000 years
Plastic bottle: 100 to 1000 years
Aluminum can: 100 to 500 years
Packaging paper: 100 to 450 years
Paper from lift pass: 100 to 450 years
Cigarette butt: 2 to 15 years
Bubble/chewing gum: 2 to 5 years
Fruit peel: 6 months
(Information courtesy of Mountain Riders)
Similar clean up events also take place in resorts across Europe. Mountain Riders organises litter collections throughout the summer months across 75 resorts in the Alps involving the local communities.
In Scotland, volunteers are meeting on Saturday at 10.00am at the base of one of the three ski areas and will be provided with gloves and litter bags. With every bag filled volunteers are rewarded with free tea and cakes!
In 2011′s event, 44 sacks of rubbish were collected by volunteers of all ages. That’s a lot of rubbish, cups of tea and cake! As well as the usual litter, the volunteers also found rather oddly a bed mattress and apparantly a ‘message in a balloon’!
To volunteer, contact the Ski Club of Great Britain at http://www.skiclub.co.uk/
They are what makes skiing and snowman building possible. You squash and bundle them up to make a snowball to throw at a friend. Falling snow conjures happy images of Christmas, children playing and beautiful landscapes. Snow falls all year round in some parts of the world but what exactly is it? Snow is a billion snowflakes all hugging each other. And each of these snowflakes are extraordinary.
Snowflakes are born when cloud droplets, about 10 μm in diameter, freeze into microscopic ice crystals and fall through the Earth’s atmosphere. These droplets remain in liquid form at temperatures lower than −18 °C. In order to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to cluster together by chance to form a lattice arrangement. The droplet then freezes around this nucleus. This homogeneous nucleation of cloud droplets only occurs at temperatures lower than −35 °C. Once a droplet has frozen it grows and this is known as the Wegner-Bergeron-Findeison process. They fall through the atmosphere due to their mass and collide and stick together in clusters or aggregates. These aggregates are what we know as snowflakes and are usually the type of ice particle that falls to the Earth’s ground. Snow!
Despite looking white in colour snowflakes are just clear ice. Their white appearance is caused by the diffused reflection of the whole spectrum of light by the tiny ice crystals.
Snowflakes form into a variety of sizes and shapes. Complex shapes are created as the snowflake moves through the differing temperatures and humidities of the atmosphere. The popular belief is that every snowflake is unique. Although statistically possible it is very unlikely for any two snowflakes to appear exactly alike. From 1885 initial attempts to find identical snowflakes by photographing thousands of them with a microscope by scientist Wilson Alwyn Bentley found the wide variety of snowflake types that can form. It is more likely that two snowflakes could become virtually identical if their environments were similar enough. Matching snow crystals were then discovered in Wisconsin, USA in 1988.
The Guinness World Records lists the world’s largest snowflakes as those of January 1887 at Fort Keogh in Montana, USA. One measured 38 cm (15 inches) wide!
In outer space snow is known to occur on Mars. A snow of hydrocarbons is also theorized to occur on Saturn’s moon Titan. While there is little or no water on Venus there is a weather phenomenon which is similar to snow. The Magellan probe imaged a highly reflective substance at the top of Venus’s highest mountain peaks which bore a strong resemblance to terrestrial snow.
The French snowflakes in Val d’Isere were as large as 50p pieces last season…let’s hope they fall larger and in greater abundance next season!