La Plagne Snow Forecast

Martin from United Kingdom writes:

I think this year was my 6th trip to La Plagne. Suffice to say I really rate it although I think the 3 Vallees just beats it for skiing and certainly for the resorts themselves. La Plagne has made some great improvements recently and there's more to come in the next couple of years. The Biolley chair used to be so slow they piped music through speakers on the pylons. The replacement shoots you to the top of the hill in a few minutes to a host of good runs. I had a terrific morning just lapping this single chair. The Colorado chair has been moved about 15m down the hill. This may seem like a very minor change but when you are hauling your sluggish body up from the restaurants in Plagne Centre after lunch, this is a real improvement! As I understand it, next year or the year after will see the new 8 seat Collosses chair that should pretty much eliminate the Plagne Bellecote bottleneck caused by day-trippers returning from Les Arcs at 4pm. I'm sure it will still be bad in half-term etc but it should be queue free for most of the season. There's going to be a new bubble out of Montalbert too which will be much better than the current painfully slow chair up to Fornalet.

On my last trip (22nd March) I was still finding powder 3 days after it snowed and only stopped finding this when the weather turned hot. It's a great resort for aspiring off-piste skiers. There are some quite nasty avalanche risk slopes though so try a guide on your first few ventures beyond the pistes. I did notice that there are quite a few flatish pistes about. If you are planning to travel from one bit of La Plagne to another, you'll probably find some.

There aren't many seriously steep blacks that are pisted. The blacks tend to be left to go to moguls. We did one off the Traversee chair that had turned to crust and I think it was the hardest thing I've ever skied on the piste. Utterly unskiable. I skied it 2 years ago in lovely powder and it was probably the best run I've ever done!

For restaurants, Killis next to the Quillis chair serves the best Croque Monsieur in the Alps. The Croque Niege in the piste front in Plagne Centre serves terrible coffee and the place next door (can't remember the name) serves much better coffee and good food. Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, in 1800, is good for an evening meal. It's on the piste with red neon lights, opposite the bottom chair.

All in all, I think I've done La Plagne now but I reckon it's worth 6 trips of anyone's ski time!