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Watch and get excited….

The traditional first snow post. It fell the evening of 27th October. Let’s hope it’s the start of much more.

Locals have started a petition to try and block plans by the Mayor’s office to develop the area around the base of the Cret du Midi ski lift.

The plans – known as ZAC des Varins – would see the addition of new rentable accommodation – including a possible hotel – restaurants; shops, new ticket offices, halls for municipal events, gardens and other facilities for summer activities and so on.

They would occupy the area around the lift, including where the current ski school buildings are, snow-plough garage, the car park and – sadly – where K-bane is (perhaps the reason we heard 21/22 is their last season 😥) 

Car parking space would be relocated further from the slopes and the Piou Piou nursery ski school moved close to the “baby” slopes. 

The drive for the development seems to be primarily to boost tourism by increasing the availability of accommodation that can be rented. Most accommodation in the town is privately owned and occupation during the season is very low compared to other resorts in the area. Most of the original hotels in the town have been redeveloped into private accommodation in the last decade.

The thrust of the argument against the development is that it has not taken the needs of locals – and families – into account and that it will change the nature of the area, being inappropriate for a town of this size. However, other towns of similar size in the Espace Diamant- such as Notre Dames de Bellecombe – already have well-developed areas at the base of their main pistes and this has always been a strange omission for Praz-sur-Arly. 

The proposal was first raised by the Mayor in 2018 and a public enquiry, gathering opinion, closed this month. It’s not yet clear when works might begin.

The area in the centre of Praz-sur-Arly around the church and tourist office is being re-developed to create a pedestrianised town square with new shops, affordable accommodation and a medical centre. 

With work on the first building – Chalet Sylvand – complete, work on the rest has started in the space on the Albertville side of town previously occupied by two hotels that closed years ago. Apparently 6 of the 7 commercial units have already been claimed, and include a wine bar, creperie and furniture workshop.

 

Nice to stumble on this review of our ski area on the Snow Heads forum by someone who has discovered this hidden gem…

The Espace Diamant is AMAZING! The snow was much better than what we’ve got in Chamonix, there was soft stuff off piste all over the place (albeit tracked out). The off piste skiing looks incredible and we barely scratched the surface. Wide fields of sub 30 degree slopes within easy reach of lifts in virtually every area, we were gobsmacked.

On every lift we were constantly nudging each other, “look at that! it looks awesome” We all agreed we’d have to come back on a powder day (if we get any…) this season. The piste skiing is great as well, even if the runs are fairly short lived and we got plenty of mileage in with some nice fast and steep reds and blacks that came as a surprise. 192km of piste over the area which is plenty for the majority of skiers. The Ballasta lift was a favourite and you could just lap the runs and then the powder off this for a couple of hours on its own, similarly the Chamois over in Bisanne.

The view over the Beaufortain are stunning and its so nice to get something different than the looming monsters of Chamonix. We had lunch overlooking Les Carrets which was very pretty and we’re looking for Chalets to do an overnighter around here sometime soon. It felt good to actually travel around the mountains and get some different views as well.

It isn’t the easiest area to navigate and the paper piste map can sometimes be misleading when it comes to positions of lifts and runs. There are large maps next to almost every lift showing the local area which we found useful.

100% going back this season at some point.