A ROUGH GUIDE TO LES ARCS: Ten Things You (Might) Need to Know

A quick tour of the resort which may be helpful for those heading off to Les Arcs for the first time:

Above Arc 1800

1. Skiing: if you are able to ski red runs, it is worth taking time out to do the 2000m descent from the Aiguille Rouge to Villaroger.  Stop for a coffee at the Solliet half way down if you get tired.

2. Ski Schools: On balance my prize would go to Arc Aventures in 1800; but more details of the various options can be found here.  Note: The Ski Club of Great Britain is offering instructor-led guiding at Les Arcs this year, in the wake of all the uncertainty around the legality of its own rep skiing with guests.  Evolution 2 are proving this service.

3. Non-skiing: It would be brave to claim Les Arcs is a top place to go.  La Piscine at Arc 1800 certainly adds a new dimension.  And here's a guide to some of the other things on offer.  The ice cave has since moved to Arc 2000 (by the Arcabulle lift).

4. Snow Art: Keep an eye out for Simon Beck's creations around Arc 2000.  They are quite something.

5. Eating: Blanche Murée is my official favourite, but there's quite a good choice now, from the nice hut by the top of the Peisey lift, all the way through to Belliou La Fumée below Arc 2000. More on the food here and (from Where to Ski and Snowboard) here.

6. History: More than you are ever likely to want to know can be found here.  In two sentences: the two founding fathers were local ski instructor Robert Blanc and developer Roger Godino who spotted the potential of the area.  It started with Arc 1600 in 1968 and progressive expansion followed with Arc 2000 opening in 1980, the year Blanc was killed in an avalanche below the resort while searching for missing skiers.

7. Architecture: British guides often sniffily dismiss the architecture of Les Arcs, choosing to wax lyrical about the Bicester-village style design on show at Arc 1950.  But there's quite a story to the architecture of Charlotte Perriand, including their application to the mass production of the interiors, for example at Arc 1800.  More here.

8. La Plagne: Buying a 6 day Paradiski pass isn't really necessary, but you are likely to be tempted to go over there for a day.  Head for the Glacier if it's not high season, and try the 2000m descent all the way down to Montchavin.  For the latest on La Plagne (in French), the Perso-La Plagne site is great.

9. Social Media: You can do some armchair exploration of the area by following some of the locals on Facebook and Twitter.

10. Parking: You have two choices.  Pay at the Funiculaire parking (still controversial) and get the train up.  If you do, it might be better to buy your ski pass before starting out as the ride up is included.  Or drive up to resort, where you will have to pay.  Unless you want to leave your car on the access roads and take your chances.

Belles Challes, Arc 1800

ARC 1800: A Guided Tour

During the season Arc 1800's weekly programme of animations includes a guided tour around the resort.  This year it was at 6pm on a Wednesday.  It's in French at the moment, but there is a plan to do a version in English.

Lots of reference is made to the work of Charlotte Perriand, who masterminded the interiors at Arc 1800.  This involved a mixture of design and practicality, with the initial Charvet blocks of Belles Challes, Lauzieres and Pierra Menta built very quickly, and on a much larger scale than had been the case at Arc 1600.

For those not yet persuaded as to the merits of the resort's architecture, here is a bit of background, while this post talks about Les Arcs' history.

The tour points out how much attention was made to get the orientation of the apartment blocks right, so that they got the benefit of the sunshine as much as possible.  Unlike La Plagne, there was always a plan to make the resort a summer destination, as witnessed in the golf course and indeed the Hotel du Golf (1974).  And talking of summer, the awarding of appellation status to Beaufort cheese has further helped at least stabilise the economy outside the winter season.

 

Belles Challes, Arc 1800

There is a reminder of how priorities changed over the course of little more than a decade. When Charvet was constructed, there was a big emphasis on being a pedestrian resort. By the time Charmetogger was on the drawing board, everyone wanted to come in their cars, and the resulting plans evolved accordingly.

In terms of developments, it does look like Edenarc will be the last major addition, as the resort is now at the limits of what will be permitted, construction-wise.

THE HISTORY OF LES ARCS: The Documentary

The history of Les Arcs takes a bit of piecing together - the pages here try to provide something of a guide.

To add to the excitement, here are two new sources of information...

The first is a video from a great series of documentaries about grands travaux.  You can find it on the Daily Motion site here.  (There's also an account of the building of the Tignes dam as part of the project to meet France's post-war electricity needs).

It covers quite a bit of ground, including:

- the mountain before Les Arcs - very little activity
- the compulsory purchase of properties by the developers (Blanc, Godino et al.  Roger Godino is interviewed at 7')
- the design of the apartments at Arc 1600, which looked to avoid "vis-a-vis" in terms of the flats being overlooked etc (11'45)
- a tour with some of the original proprieteres at Arc 1800 (14')
- the story of Radio Les Arcs (17')
- an interview with Bernard Jafe, one of the original commercants, who runs the photo shop next to Chez Boubou at Arc 1800 (19')
- archive shots of a family in one of the Perriand-designed interiors at Arc 1800 (22')
- "Le Disneyworld" at Arc 1950 (24')
- the Les Arcs pistes today: some 250,000 skiers a year

The prefabricated bathroom/kitchen units
designed by Charlotte Perriand helped meet the
target of getting the Arc 1800apartments
built between May1 and November 20

The second exhibit, from the www.alpissime.com site, pays homage to the early proprieteres of Les Arcs.

Pierra Menta, Arc 1800

Some headlines:

- many of the early buyers bought the flats off-plan
- the personal touch of Robert Blanc played a role in some cases, for example bringing some of the people he met in Courchevel over to invest in Les Arcs
- Arc 1600 remains 80% proprietere-owned
- the early lifts included the now-dismantled Gollet lift at 1600, as well as a steep drag following the course of the current Comborciere chair
- helicopters used to drop off off-piste skiers at the Altiport, these being the days before the ban on heli-skiing

LES ARCS IN PICTURES: The Architecture (Part 2)

The architecture of Les Arcs is much maligned.  At least that's my view.... There was a vision, an overarching idea, which the founding fathers took very seriously.  More on the background here.

Arc 1800 formed stage 2 of the development.  Like the much smaller Arc 1600, there was an emphasis on the design, and Charlotte Perriand took the lead on the interiors.  But this chantier was on a much larger scale. Here's the plan for the Charvet site:

The blocks were built during a tight building window.  Everything had to fit within a seven month timetable.  The emphasis was on large numbers of studio apartments.  Here's the design for Pierra Menta.  These apartments are 30m sq.  They follow the slope of the hill, so that, from above, there is no hint of the scale of the immeubles that lie below.

Here's the inside of the Belles Challes block, in Charvet.  This links directly with the Lauzieres building, which is slightly up-hill (and slightly up-market).  

Although the blocks are large, great importance was placed on two factors.  First, having an integrated kitchen/living area (not sure there is much option given the size of the studios).  And second, ensuring that there is no "vis-a-vis" - ie the flats open straight onto views of the valley.

The final third of the following video includes interviews with some of the architects, and a Grand-Designs style overview of the construction of the blocks, including the pre-fabricated bathroom/kitchen unit produced off-site and loaded into place using a crane:

More on the background at the Charlotte Perriand Pompidou Centre exhbition from a few years back, as well as in the Carnet de Montagne book, available in resort.  The tourist office do guided tours during the season, if you're in Les Arcs and want to know more.....

THE LES ARCS A-Z: A Guide for 2012

Here's an attempt at a guide to Les Arcs and the surrounding area....

Architecture - 3 sites in Les Arcs have been awarded the label of "Architecture of the 20th Century": the sites of Arc 1600/1800, the town hall and cinema in Bourg St Maurice and the Aiguille Rouge cable car station - overview here

Bourg St Maurice - "la montagne dans la ville", gateway to Les Arcs

Cycling - Les Arcs was the scene of Indurain's downfall; La Plagne of historic performances by Roche, Fignon and Boogerd

Domaine Skiable - here is the 2010/11 plan des pistes; the Les Arcs website has been a bit slack and hasn't put up the new 2011/12 one up yet - and there are a few changes, for example in the Mont Blanc area above Arc 1600

Edenarc - you can buy your new flat here and look back at what might have been, with Charlotte Perriand's original design here

Funiculaire - "unique in France", with a new makeover.  Timetable here

Golf des Arcs - a beautiful site, 32 holes, open from June until les premieres neiges

Arc 1800 runs to resort, on the golf course

Hauteville Gondon - home village of Robert Blanc, founder of Les Arcs

Infos practiques - on the Les Arcs website

Jeux Olympiques - the speed skiing was at Les Arcs, and saw a tragedy on the morning of the event

Killy - as in Espace Killy - about 40 mins up the road from Bourg

League Tables - Alpe d'Huez beats all the Tarentaise resorts, and is a brilliant all-rounder, summer as well as winter - see rankings here

Manchester United - cf Val d'Isere.  France's best ski resorts are matched with their Premiership equivalents here

News - @ledauphine gives comprehensive coverage and will improve your French

Off-piste - there is a Bureau des Guides at 1800, and Arc Aventures also have specialists.  Here's a book for the armchair expert, in French but with some English summaries.  It's available in resort

Aiguille Rouge summit: 3220m

Plagne - as in La Plagne - Les Arcs' local rivals...

Quecha - the low-cost Decathlon range.  The shop in Albertville (just off the RN90) is very good and sells ski de fond, ski rando equipment etc, which can be hard to find in the resorts



Rosiere - as in La Rosiere - distinctly under-rated - my favourite (apart from Les Arcs, of course).  Great views in both directions towards both La Plagne and Tignes, as well as the link with La Thuile to explore

La Rosiere: looking up the valley towards Tignes

Society and Politics - against an uncertain economic background, the area is not short of heated debates about which direction/s it should take in future - overview here

Tignes - just up the road.  Park at Les Brevieres

U - as in Super-U on the Route des Arcs at the edge of Bourg St Maurice

Valmorel - a resort on the up, with a new Club Med, new lifts, and handier for the airport than the Haute Tarentaise - quick review here

Websites - official Les Arcs site is more style than substance, but others compensate

X-ray - main cabinet medical is close to the Cachette lift in Arc 1600.  Will cost you several hundred pounds to be taken down the mountain by a hunky pisteur

Y - La Grotte du Yeti appears to be a chain of bars - with branches in Arc 1800, Les 2 alpes, St Francois Longchamp etc

Z - As in Zinedine Zidane - the France football team often train at Tignes, for example before their ill-fated trip to South Africa....

THE STORY OF LES ARCS: Interview with Claudie Blanc

Claudie Blanc, daughter of Robert Blanc (founder of Les Arcs) is a communications professional and the subject of an interview in this month's edition of the excellent Alpes magazine.  There's lots here to on the birth of Les Arcs - more in her feature-length book: Shepherds' Dream...

It's a very different story to that of neighbouring La Plagne, for example, which is documented (in French and with fab photos) here.

Here are some key points from the Les Arcs story.

* She spent her early years at Courchevel 1850, where family friends included a certain Jean-Claude Kily - "really sympa, a lovely guy".  The Blanc family was originally from Hauteville-Gondon - a small farming village just outside Bourg St Maurice.

* She was (and remains) uber-proud of her father - who at that time symbolised the spirit of the pulls rouges of the ESF - who knew how to trampoline and get the animation of the resort going just as as well as they knew how to ski.

* Robert Blanc's expeditions in the high mountains had another goal:

"My father was exploring the future ski area of Les Arcs, and looking to convince people to invest in his dream: creating his station on his mountains of the Arc.  My mother told me this was non-negotiable for him.  He just had to find the right partner".

* Enter Roger Godino, a brilliant mind, educated in the US.

"This is what appears to me to be extraordinary in the whole story - it's that at this time a shepherd-come-ski instructor and an intellectual machine like Godino [who became the promoter of Les Arcs] were able to get on as equals.  Each knew and admired the talents of the other."

* Once the resort was estabished, Godino encouraged Blanc to concentrate on what he was best at: innovation.  It was clear that management of the ski area was not really his thing.

"With another ski-instructor friend, they conceived the ski evolutif methd which got people skiiing in 3 days using short skis.  Les Arcs was 30 years ahead.  The spirit of Les Arcs was to dare and to enjoy oneself."

* And then the unimaginable happened: on the 4 Feb 1980, Blanc was killed by an avalanche during an operation on the road up to Arc 2000.

* Her cv includes:

- born 1959 at Albertville
- 1973-77: in the France "B" ski team
- 1983-6: took part in the "Apocalypse Snow" films, shot in Les Arcs
- 1986-91: journalist at Ski Francais
- 1991-2: worked on communications at the Albertville Olympics
- Since 1995, various roles in Savoie tourism
- Since July 2011: deputy mayor at Hauteville-Gondon

* * *

There's lots more on Robert Blanc in the book.  He's certainly THE father-figure of the station, with his photo present in many of the shops and bars.  It reminds me a bit of the photos of Tito I recall from childhood visits to Yugoslavia.

What's not in here is the story of the landslide on the Les Arcs road, how the dreams of Les Arcs came crashing down with the resort almost going bust, or indeed her strong views on the current Edenwest development!  For another day....