FRENCH SKI RESORT LEAGUE TABLES (1): "Le Grand Ski"

A couple of seasons ago, Alpes magazine ran a special issue called "La Palmares des Stations".   This ranked the different resorts under a series of categories.

The first is "Le Grand Ski" - ie an Ofsted-style league table aimed at those for whom the skiing is everything.

The magazine devised a complex scoring system which included:

- Height of top lift
- Vertical descent
- Range of pistes (see below)
- No of pistes
- Access to big ski area
- Events, competitions, etc
- Price of lift pass
- Price of accommodation

Perhaps the most interesting stat is the one on range of pistes.  They calculated the % of reds and blacks as a % of all pistes.  The higher the %, the greater the score - I've set this in brackets below.

Anyway, the winner is.....Alpe d'Huez, which got maximum scores on both height of top lift, vertical drop and number of pistes, as well as on price of accommodation (Serre Chevalier, Le Corbier, Chamrousse and Villard-de-Lans all did well here, too.  Courchevel, and indeed the Trois Vallees generally, did not.

Here is the full ranking (% red/black pistes):

1.  Alpe d'Huez (44)
2.  Les Arcs (48)
3.  La Plagne (33)
4.  Val Thorens (52)
5.  Vars (45)
6.  Chamonix (49)
7.  Serre-Che (50)
8.  Val d'Isere (44)*
9.  Tignes (47)
10. Les Menuires (51)
11. Meribel (43)
12. La Clusaz (37)
13. Chamrousse (48)
14. Avoriaz (43)
15. Courchevel (36)
16. Montgenevre (58)
17. Le Corbier (25)
18. Allos 1800 (51)
19. Villard-de-Lans (51)
20. Chatel (45)
21. Isola 2000 (26)

* Clearly, this assumes that all piste gradings are the same, which of course they aren't - cf the savage "blue runs" around Val d'Isere....