Always popular with skiers, Les Arcs never disappoints not surprisingly as it is one of the biggest in the world with excellent terrain and a huge vertical. Les Arcs is a fantastic place to source a ski holiday and with the snow being as good as ever some great ski deals are on offer now for that holiday this summer. The ski area takes in glacier skiing, wooded slopes and above tree-line bowls – in short pretty well all imaginable conditions. Much of the terrain is long fast motorway cruising, although there is more variety than at many comparable resorts. Experts have plenty to keep them happy including extensive off-piste terrain. The legendary 7km (4.5) mile long black from the top of the Aiguille Rouge down to Villaroger is one of the world’s longest and covers the world’s biggest vertical for a run of this grading, a full 2000 metres. You can as part of your ski deal get a ski pass that covers the famous Paradiski area and for this you would take the famous Vanoise Express cable car, which departs from Peisey Vallandry, takes 200 people at a time (120 on the lower deck, 80 on the upper one) over to La Plagne.
Les Arcs is not just for skiers of course, it claims to be the home of snowboarding and certainly some people were sliding around on the slopes here on something very similar to a snowboard a few years before Jake Burton hit the headlines in the early ’80s. Some of the famous ‘Apocalypse Snow’ movies that first popularised the sport were initiated here. The resort is very ‘boarder friendly with a combination of value accommodation, great terrain for all styles and abilities and as many chairs and gondolas as surface lifts.
There is après ski at Les Arcs, but in common with most French purpose built ski centres in not having a particularly strong après ski reputation, after all nothing compares with Austria in this respect. However Arc 1800 is the place where most of it happens with great apartment parties, with the hotel du Golf piano bar, and at Arc 2000 there’s another night club, KL92 but the Red Rock Cafe is perhaps more the focus of evening activities, serving a good choice of cocktails and with live music often performed.