Chamonix Bike Blog

Tag: Lift opening

Lift openings 2021 // Roll the dice

Last years version of this was easily my most edited post ever as I tried to keep up with when lifts would actually open. Anyone want to put money on this year going to the original schedule below?

Nope, me neither. But here’s all the dates you want and need anyways, with updates coming thick and thick as I have them. Last update: ~~08/04/21~~ (post is up for a day and updated already)  ~~09/04/21~~ ~~18/04/21~~ ~~27/04/2021~~ ~~03/05/2021~~ ~~19/05/2021~~ ~~21/05/2021 29/05/2021~~ (and all lifts now updated so any changes from here in means la merde has met le moulin. Again.) 21/06/2021 (quelle suprise)

Chamonix, provisional dependent on government advice (https://www.montblancnaturalresort.com/fr/ouvertures)

Flegere: 12th June – 19th September,
Brevent/Planpraz: 12th June – 12th September, then 23rd – 7th November
Tramway du Mont Blanc: 12th June – 26th September
Le Tour: 12th June – 12th September (but work has started on replacing the lower gondola, so this has even more chance of going wrong)
Bellevue: 12th June – 5th September
Prarion: 19th June – 19th September (+ weekends from the 6th June)
Vallorcine: 26th June – 29th August
Grand Montets: 3rd July – 5th September, WEEKENDS ONLY!.

There’s rumours that good riding exists somewhere that isn’t Chamonix. If that’s true, it might be at one of these places:

La Thuile: 26th June- 5th September although mind it’ll be closed 7th – 11th July for the EWS. www.lathuile.it/en/chairlift_time.html
Megeve: 26th June – 5th September. Mont Blanc natural resort bit is www.montblancnaturalresort.com/fr/horaires-tarifs-megeve and the Jaillet side 3rd July – 29th August but subject to change megeve.com/fr/ete/se-depenser/remontees-mecaniques-ete/
St Gervais: 26th June – 5th September. https://ete.ski-saintgervais.com/fr/parcours-vtt
Les Contamines: 26th June – 5th September. Information up on their website, obviously, because Les Contamines is about the only place in Haute Savoie that can do in informative website. www.lescontamines.net/home_calendar.html
Grand Massif: 26th June – 5th September. Or at least, that’s what Les Carroz is running, plus the weekends either side of those days. Samoens, Morillon and Flaine are a week shorter either side of the Les Carroz season at 3rd July to 29th August. summer.grand-massif.com/mountain-biking
Pila: 26th June – 12th September, plus bonus weekends of 5/6th, 12/13th and 19/20th June for the gondola for 2021. Woop. pila.it/en/summer-season/
Portes du Soleil: 28th May – 01st November. That got your attention didn’t it… Obviously, that’s not everywhere. Champery and Les Gets open 11th June with Les Gets open fri – sun for the 2 weekends before that (then maybe not the 13th – 16th, bit unclear) , Avoriaz and Chatel open the 12th, 13th, 19th and 20th June, then all the days from the 25th June, Morzine 27th June then Morgins opens 4th July. Closing is 1st to 6th September except Champery and Morgins, but that’s all far to far away to worry about, lets see if things open first. for  en.portesdusoleil.com/
Courmayeur: 11th July – 30th August. Apparently the Mont Blanc Unlimited pass gives you 1/2 price tickets for the lift, and bikes seemingly now travel for free on the Courmayeur lifts. woop, etc. https://www.courmayeur-montblanc.com/?q=access_parking&language=en
Verbier: 19th June – 31st October. The Verbier – Ruinettes lift is being updated this spring, so a slightly later opening. All the lifts open 3rd July – 20th September and a selection outside those dates. Also, Bruson 17th July – 15th August, now that is interesting…. www.verbierbikepark.ch/horaires_fr.php
Les Arcs: 26th June – 28th August. There’s a bit more effort getting put into the bike park, hopefully also into running a longer lift season one of these years….starting this year with the Funicular and Cachette open weekends from 5th June. lesarcs.com/hiking/summer-area-les-arcs-peisey-vallandry-opening-hoursprices.html

Here is usually the bit where I whimsically ponder on early season riding and try and mention stuff that’s new in the valley. Only I’m nearly done updating the “how to ride a bike in Chamonix” post from 2018 so that should cover the news, and early season riding has mostly consisted of either going ski touring (which I guess is not what you’ve come here for), or getting all my post brexit paperwork in order to still be able to guide in Switzerland and Italy as well as France (which I guess you also did not come here for, even if you might be pleased to hear it worked: alpineflowmtb.com).

So, you’ll just need to hold tight for another few days until there’s some readable content and make do with photos of the fruits of one man’s labour on a hill above Les Houches when he decided he couldnay be doing with skiing much this year and instead did a bit of trail work every time he took his 2 dogs for a walk.

And watched too many edits from Squamish of riding stoopid stuff.

07/04/2021
Dorenaz

I got a fair bit of feedback on the last post here. Apparently the physics of time and space and time were/are/will be a step too far. Folk were worried. It’s nice to know people care. And read the blog.

With that in the mind, lets bring things back down to earth with something more cheery.

Parasites.

Damn they’re amazing. Take toxoplasmosis. Until recently all I knew about it was you get it in cat poo and it caused Tommy’s death in Trainspotting (err, spoiler). Well, it didn’t really, his death was the result of a chain of events that surely couldn’t have been foreseen but that doesn’t help my point, whatever, choose life.

Some of this is relevant. Toxoplasmosis is a parasite that lives in the guts of cats. To proliferate it needs to spread from cat to cat. Obviously, this is difficult when you live in the gut of a cat. So, toxoplasmosis leaves through the usual channels and sits on the floor. Cats don’t eat cat poo. Cats eat rats and mice. So instead the parasite waits for the rats and mice to eat the poo and get one step closer to the guts of the next cat. This would be interesting enough, but the really good bit is about to come. Normal mouse and rat behaviour is to stay as close as possible to the edge of a room or some other shelter. Not those that have been infected with toxoplasmosis. These rats and mice throw off their agoraphobia and make a b-line for the middle of the room, maximising their chance of ending up as cat snack. It gets weirder. Some studies into rats have shown that after being infected with toxoplasmosis they might become sexually attracted to the scent of cat urine. Which raises some interesting questions about the perfume industry.

This tiny wee parasite completely alters the behaviour of a host animal for it’s own gain. Where could analogies with day to day life be found in that?

Thinking about it, is this blog parasitic? Does it alter your behaviour when you read these posts and keep seeing yon lovely Airdrop Edit on the finest trails in the world, you start associating the two. Probably not your behaviour, but does it alter my behaviour? I’m keen to keep riding the bike (it’s the most fun bike I’ve owned), and I’m also keen to keep getting them, so does that worm its way into my mind and alter my picture choices? How about when you see ideas for rides that are notchamonix and they work on your mind to change your behaviour to do that, leave the safety of the bikepark, head out into the open. Does this blog make you attracted to the smell of marmotte pee?

So many questions with no intention of finding an answer. On with the riding.

In a valley not so far away there is a magical lift. Ok, maybe magical is pushing it a bit, but unique should cover it. Dorenaz is public transport, a quicker easier way up to Champex than taking the bus. That makes it fairly rare. It takes bikes, at least 6 of them, for a small extra fee. This makes it rarer. You hang the bikes from hooks on the underside of the lift and hope they’re still attached when you get to the top. There’s not many lifts that make you do that.

Normally when you use uplift you sling the bike into the carrier and forget about it until you have to unhook it from the chairlift at the top. Not so much in Dorenaz where I challenge anyone not to have a quick glance at their axles to make sure everything’s done up good and tight. It’s funny the things that get inside your head.

No matter how amazing, the lift only gets you so far. We stood about in the slightly cooler air of 1124m altitude, looked at a map, discussed options, and decided it was way too much like effort to go all the way to the Tete du Portail, and definitely way too hot and dry for the descent. The lower trails on the south facing aspects from the Dorenaz lift are loose and dry at the best of times, as it doesn’t seem to have rained this century in Valais we couldn’t really call this the best of times.

Instead we started traversing and climbing along the west facing slopes, linking trails we knew with trails we’d heard of.

It went pretty well. We basically ended up with 2 descents, the first steep, slow and technical the second faster looser and more flowing.

The first was what I guess BC Canada would feel like if it rained less and was warmer. So BC in about 10 years then. The dirt didn’t quite have that hero tack of Whistler, but it wasn’t just loose dust either, and the rock lined trail dropping down through old growth forest with the early autumn light filtering down to the green floor made you feel like you were in another Frenchie-living-in-Squamish shredit. Stills make this myth easier to perpetuate than video.

I can’t really remember the climb, which is probably part of the bike being a parasite thing, altering memory to suppress the bit’s that aren’t fun, so maybe the first descent led straight into the second?

It didn’t, but we get to make our own truths, so it did. Which will be part of the parasitic behaviour of society thing.

The second course was a much quicker affair, which was good and bad. Lot’s of fun, but it’s all over so much quicker. It was good to be in nice wide spaced trees, and being early autumn there was a fine combination of orange on the forest floor, orange in the canopy, and less intense orange sunlight dappling down amongst the shadows.

Orange, truly the colour of our time.

I alluded to it being quick, 850m had been lost in a dusty, slidy, hairpin-y flash and we were left with the pay off from going right for the last few hours. A sharp turn to the left and heading back home. We can but hope. Turned out the fun wasn’t over. Whilst going right had been a steady downhill trend, going left still had some fun singletrack next to the Rhone to pump and pop along before the final few kilometers of vineyard track back to the car. Chat turned to where next in 2020’s adventure. No idea, but I’ll probably write something for it. Photos for this week come from the phone’s of messieurs Oliver Carr and Juan Coatez, ta muchly!

22/09/2020
Lifts in a time of Corona. Lift openings 2020

Nope, never read the book. Or seen the film. Never found the time really.

Normally by now I’d’ve put up a post with the summer opening dates for lifts within an hour or so of Chamonix. Seems 2020 isn’t doing normally. Instead, here’s a list of what might open and when according to each of the bikepark’s official outlets, some of which are more up to date than others. I’ll update it as more details emerge, but I wouldn’t book a holiday without double checking the info at source first. Last update ~~07/05/2020~~ ~~12/05/2020~~ ~~13/05/2020~~ ~~21/05/2020~~ ~~23/05/2020~~ ~~27/05/2020~~ ~~28/05/2020~~ ~~04/06/2020~~ 11/06/2020.

We still can’t quite get out to ride bikes on Chamonix’s trails, but hopefully that starts back on the 11th May. Until then, read the preliminary lift opening info and look at pictures from last Autumn’s work guiding the Lake to Lake trips in the north of Italy.

Chamonix, from CdMB, provisional dependant on evolution of government advice *NOW CONFIRMED*.

Planpraz: 6/7th June then 13th June – 20th September
Flegere: Weekends from 13th June then 4th July – 13th September, then 17th October to 1st November (delayed to 20th June due to weather)
Brevent: Weekends from 13th June then 4th July – 13th September
Tramway du Mont Blanc: 13th June – 20th September
Le Tour: Gondola weekends from 13th June then everything 4th July – 13th September (delayed to 20th June due to weather)
Vallorcine: Weekend of 27th June then 4th July – 30th August
Bellevue: 27th June – 20th September
Prarion: 4th July – 13th September (+ weekends from the 6th June, except it looks like the weather’s too bad to open for the weekend 6/7 June)
Grand Montets: 4th July – 6th September, with restrictions on hours.

Away from Chamonix you’ve got:

La Thuile: 4th July- 30th August are the published dates. Fingers crossed they can manage it, and that we can visit. I need my coffee. www.lathuile.it/en/chairlift_time.html
Megeve: 4th July – 6th September. Megeve is now 2 resorts, so the Mont Blanc natural resort bit is www.montblancnaturalresort.com/fr/horaires-tarifs-megeve and the Jaillet side is ???? megeve.com/fr/ete/se-depenser/remontees-mecaniques-ete/
St Gervais: 27th June – 30th August Access to the “Whizz” trail from 0900 to 1800… ete.ski-saintgervais.com/fr/e5-liens
Les Contamines: 8th July – 6th September. Information up on their website as usual. www.lescontamines.net/home_calendar.html
Grand Massif: 27th June – 30th August. Assorted start and finish times across the area, with a big caveat that these are their target dates and it might change yet. Basically between 4th July and 30th August with the added super bonus of Les Carroz from the 27th June. summer.grand-massif.com/mountain-biking
Pila: 27th June – 7th September, plus bonus weekends of 13th and 21st June for the gondola. Hopefully. pila.it/en/summer-season/
Portes du Soleil: 13th June – 20th September. Again, the PdS have caveated the shit out of this being very government regulations and weather dependant, but they are hoping to open Les Gets for weekends only from 30th May (now confirmed!!), Avoriaz have recently confirmed July 4th opening, Chatel confirmed 27th June, with full opening in June until end of August when lifts will start closing. en.portesdusoleil.com/
Courmayeur: Wait, what, Courmayeur? Aye, seems bikes now travel for free on the Courmayeur lifts. woop, etc. Unfortunately no confirmed dates for now. www.courmayeur-montblanc.com/?q=tariffs&language=ja
Verbier: 6th June – 25th October. Over the border in Switzerland things are a bit more relaxed, so…. Weekends only from 6th June, all the days from 4th July – 21st September, then weekends though until 25th October. Big question, can we get over the border? www.verbierbikepark.ch/horaires_fr.php
Les Arcs: 4th July – 29th August. Not all the info is up yet on the website, but they’ve been busy advertising 4th July as the hoped for opening date for 2020. Fingers crossed. lesarcs.com/hiking/summer-area-les-arcs-peisey-vallandry-opening-hoursprices.html

That’s what’s lifts are opening, hopefully, and when, hopefully. Borders, accommodation, cafes, bars, shuttles, public transport? We don’t know the answers to that yet, but I guess things will get clearer as we go on. In France the best, or at least most official, source is the government. ‘Cos, like, they make the rules. www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus or the EU wide reopen.eu

Normally I start these things with some fanciful, unrelated tale that’s caught my interest recently and drag the analogy kicking and screaming round to bikes. I really wanted to write something about what seems obvious right now maybe wasn’t quite so obvious in the past. To write about Florence Nightingale, statistician and social reformer (and nurse), and data analysis being more useful than a lamp at stopping infections in the Crimean war. Then about people analysing damage to planes that came back from WWII dogfights and concluding that as they had no bullet holes around the cockpit and engine, those bits must be armoured enough already without ever asking what holes were in the planes that didn’t come back. But I just don’t really feel like it. As mentioned before, it’s not normal times. If you’re stuck for things to do, try googling both those subjects. It’s really interesting.

I have a feeling there’ll be plenty of exploratory riding content appearing in the next few months as many of us in the alps remain unemployed and look to the hills for escape. Maybe this summer’ll be a grand opportunity to explore closer to home? Maybe the borders will open and I’ll be off working as a guide around the Alps? Hopefully the optimists are right and 2020 blossoms into a fine summer for everyone. Do what you should for where you are and I guess the trail etiquette adage is more accurate than ever just now. Be Nice, Say Hi*.

*Saying Hi removes the need to shake hands. good forward thinking that.

07/05/2020
Anything for an easy life.

Do you want it all, and do you want it now? Genuine achievement just takes so damn long and so much effort. Wouldn’t it be easier just to want something then get it with out all the hard work inbetween?

Well, aye, it would. So rather than put the long miles in getting ourselves back to biking fitness and riding our way into some sort of form, we’ve just looked at where we can hop on the lift and get dropped off at the top of the hill instead.

First stop. Pila.

Through the tunnel, past the open border and into Italy. Pila should be 45 minutes drive from Chamonix, but for some reason every trip there involves getting lost in the maze of streets surrounding the lift station. We got there in the end. Obviously. There wouldn’t be a post here if we were still trying to achieve escape velocity from the city.

For the enormous outlay of 3 euros, you and your bike can be lifted up 800m to the Les Fleurs station. For the cost of a cappuccino more you can go 400m higher to the Pila ski area, which we did on our first lap then didn’t bother with afterwards. The first few hundred meters of the trails are still under snow and really not worth the hassle.

Back to Les Fleurs and a short ride/push up the hill outside the lift station, followed by a couple minutes coast along the road, gets you to the main Pila Bike Park home run. Keep going along the road and you’ll find walking trails dropping down to your left which deliver varying degrees of interest, varying on your early season tolerance to damp greasy rocks…

The park trails are in pretty good condition just now. A few braking bumps but nothing terrible. A couple trees down but easy passed. No dust but, wait, what!?! No dust is a first for all of us in Pila.

Next day next venue. Chamonix to Verbier is less distance yet longer time driving than the trip to Pila, but still easy under the hour to Le Chable. Like Pila you usually go skiing by parking in a huge valley base car park, taking a lift to the ski area, then another lift to the skiing. Hence, the bikers get to use that first stage lift then drop back down to the valley floor. Simples.

Unlike Pila, the lift doesn’t cost 3 euros a go. But if you’ve got a Chamonix season pass you can use one of your wee free vouchers. Free. How often do you hear that in Switzerland?

There is still a wee bit of snow on some of the highest trails from Verbier town, so we were dropping down a couple hundred meters on road first before traversing onto some summer guiding favourites. Nuthouse, Church, Comfort Zone. Grand to be back out on the trails I worked on last year with the rest of the Bike Verbier crew, even if we probably spent more time standing in the sun chatting than riding. Surely all these games are just about the people not the sport itself?

Where else? Les Arcs ticks the valley floor base / ski area shuttle lift box, and it’s open until 28th April. Then there’s La Saleve. Open all year (well, except when they’re fixing it, what is it with France and broken telepheriques?) and rumour has it there’s been lots of digging going on there.

In an ideal piece of narrative one of these would form the third tangent of the triptych, neatly tying three countries worth of riding together and letting me make all sorts of subtext about different places achieving the same thing. This isn’t the ideal though. The weather wasn’t looking so inspiring and I kinda wanted to go skiing still and there’s work to be done around the flat and, and, and. Honestly, why is everything so much effort?

17/04/2019
Ccccchanges: Lift openings 2019

Another winter has passed, another few months of snow is melting away, another post trying to collate all the lift opening dates for the summer gets cobbled together.

This year the theme is “oops, that lift’s broken as well”. Yes, not been a great year for Compagnie du Mont Blanc. Starting with the multiple cable failures on the Aiguille du Midi cash cow/telecabine, there’s also been problems with the Planpraz telecabine, Col Cornu chairlift, Bochard telecabine, Grands Montets telecabine, and the Charamillon telecabine.

How this pans out for summer MTB action is:

Grands Montets. After the slightly careless burning to the ground of the mid station in October 2018, current chat on opening is 2021. The Plan Joran telecabine is open this summer, but whether they let dirty bikers into their shiny new(ish) cable car is another question.

Brevent. The issue with Planpraz is apparently fixed, but we’ve heard that before in Chamonix this year. And there’s absolutely nothing to worry about for the Brevent top station, 100% no issues with that at all and no chance of short notice closures for repairs…

Flegere. The main gondola up from the valley floor has come to the end of its life, so is getting removed and replaced this summer. You can traverse to Flegere from Brevent easier than Brevent to Flegere, so that’s good news. Assuming the Planpraz lift doesn’t break again. Less good is the news that all the trails under the cables will be closed until 30th November for the works.

Le Tour. The Charamillon telecabine is overdue replacement but, due to assorted local issues, this keeps getting knocked back. Currently looking like 2020, but who knows. If it breaks then access from Vallorcine is easy enough and it’s likely the opening dates of the Vallorcine lift will be extended to accommodate this.

Train. The train, or year round uplift as we otherwise know it, isn’t running between Le Fayet and Chamonix from 1st April to 21st June. The bus replacement service doesn’t take bikes. Or often dogs.

It’s not all bad news. A fairly average winter for snowfall means that the trails should be snow clear nice and early this summer, and you can already play bike off the lifts at Pila, Verbier and Les Arcs. Woop, etc.

Chamonix opening dates (as ever, usual CdMB caveats apply, check montblancnaturalresort.com for the latest):

Bellevue: 8th June – 22nd September
Le Tour: 8th June – 22nd September
Prarion: 8th June – 16th September
Brevent: 8th June – 15th September (Then Planpraz only 19th October – 3rd November)
Tramway du Mont Blanc: 15th June – 22nd September
Grands Montets: 15th June – 1st September
Vallorcine: 29th June – 1st September
Flegere: Closed to be made into a 10 person telecabine

There’s more to the Alps than Chamonix, what other dates are there:

La Thuile: 29th June – 1st September (is an educated guess, as ever, dates not up, but that’s the usual) lathuile.it/en/bike
Megeve: 21st June – 15th September. A mix of the Jaillet, Mont d’Arbois, Rochebrune and Petite Fontaine lifts opening dates. If you want the all open it’s July and August, more details at: lesportesdumontblanc.fr
St Gervais: Bettex and the alps’ best flow track, open 28th June to 1st September ete.ski-saintgervais.com
Les Contamines: Simple to navigate and with all the information for the coming year displayed, other areas take note. Please! 29th June – 1st September lescontamines.net
Grand Massif: Assorted (very assorted) start and finish times across the area, and they’re not online yet, but based on past seasons between 15th June – 1st September summer.grand-massif.com/mountain-biking
Pila: On the ball this year, website all updated and with 2019 dates on it already! 22nd June – 9th September pila.it/en/summer-season/
Portes du Soleil: 22nd June – 8th September for the most part, with Les Gets open at weekends 30th May to 16th June. Website a bit slow on info this year, so here’s just the Les Gets bit, you can work out the rest. lesgets.com/envie-de/vtt/tarifs-et-horaires
Verbier: Weekends & Holidaydays only from 8th June then all the days from 1st July– 27th October verbierbikepark.ch/horaires_fr

CCcchanges? Aye, so going with the old adage “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, guide” I joined the ranks of the French qualified MTB guides this winter, so I can now work anywhere in Europe that’ll accept my burgundy passport. At some point soon I’ll have details and prices up so you can pay for the pleasure of riding with me instead of just reading about it for free (*Edit, that’ll be the details you need here: Alpine Flow MTB ). I’ve already got a wheen of interesting work planned, so I’m pretty excited really.

Dinnay fret, there’ll still be assorted content popping up here, it just might be increasingly tenuously linked to Chamonix. The Chamonix bit of the title seemed like such a good idea all those years ago. So did lumberjack shirts and baggy baggy jeans though, so perhaps looking backwards and harking to bygone eras isn’t the best idea.

This blog isn’t the only bit of bike related content I’ve done this year. Airdrop have brought out a new bike. As Airdrop is a company that doesn’t do things the normal way, Ed thought it would be good to put some content up on their website about their now superseded Edit V2, showing it having been abused and explaining why you shouldn’t buy one of their new bikes. Which is yet another reason to like what Ed and James are doing. So, here’s a wee link to the bit I wrote explaining why I like my Edit so much. And it’s got a grand title photo that makes me look way more gnar than I am.

Cheers Lorne and Toby for the photos, and welcome back to bike season then everyone, I’m off for a ski.

11/04/2019