Les 3 Vallées

You step out of the warm pub into the crisp mountain air, and you can hear the bass rattling from a very specific street.

The infamous Rue de Gébrular, or as every saisonnaire and local in the Three Valleys calls it, the Rue de la Soif, Thirst Street.

70% of all the bars in the resort are crammed into this single, steep, snow-covered street, and the madness on that street starts with a Danish bar that literally sets the ceiling on fire.

Oh, you are talking about Café Snesko.

And that is just within the local bowl.

Because the moment you clip into your bindings in Val Thorens, you are also standing at the high-altitude gateway of the Three Valleys.

With a single pass, you have 600 kilometers of interconnected runs spanning all the way across to Meribel, Courchevel, Les Menuires, and Saint Martin.

It is officially the largest linked ski area on the planet.

If you want to learn how to carve, how to actually roll your ankles, engage the metal edges of your skis, and leave two clean pencil lines in the corduroy, Moraine is where you do it.

You feel like an absolute downhill hero.

Every skier in the Three Valleys loves that run.

And you've got other fantastic cruisers like Plein Sud, which catches the warm afternoon sun and gives you this sweeping panoramic cruise right down to the chalet terraces.

They really have.

And the undisputed king of slope-side dining in Val Thorent, arguably in the entire Three Valleys, is Chalet de la Marine.

It sits perched at 2,500 metres right on the Blue Dalles Run, and it holds an official quality recommendation in the Michelin Guide.

Chalet de la Marine is just legendary.

In our next episode, we are diving deep into the snow.

We are talking about pistes, slopes and difficulty levels in Val Thorent.

We'll be breaking down the 600 kilometres of the Three Valleys, the best wide cruises for beginners, the legendary high-altitude glaciers and how to conquer the terrifying 1,000-metre vertical drop of the Combe de Caron Black Run.

Hit subscribe so you don't miss our comprehensive ski guide.

Ah, the train route.

This is becoming one of the most popular ways to travel to the three valleys, especially with everyone looking at their carbon footprint.

It is a fantastic option, but it comes with its own unique set of mountain logistics, and that journey all revolves around one legendary railway hub on the valley floor.

Yes, the railway route.

And if you are taking the train to Val Thorens your destination station is Gare de Moûtiers - Salins - Brides-les-Bains.

Everyone in the ski industry just calls it Moûtiers.

It sits right on the valley floor at 480 meters altitude, directly at the foot of the three valleys.

The rail connections into Moûtiers are brilliant.

It completely transformed the resort's reliability.

While lower resorts in the three valleys had to close their high links during winter storms, Val Thorens could keep moving thousands of skiers up to the glaciers in total safety.

Lift companies from Austria, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States flew engineers out to Val Thorens just to stare at the machinery and license the technology.

Today, funitels are a global gold standard, but the prototype was forged on these very slopes.

And because the resort faces mostly north and northwest, the snow stays dry, cold, and powdery long after the sun would have turned it to heavy slush lower down the valley.

But Val Thorens isn't just a high-altitude island.

It is the undisputed crown of the Three Valleys, or Les Trois Vallées, which is officially the largest linked ski domain on the planet.

With a single lift pass, you have direct, seamless access to 600 kilometers of interconnected pistes across eight world-class resorts, including Méribel, Courchevel, and Les Menuires.

And yes, I would also say always go off-piste with a guide or an instructor.

It doesn't have to be a mountain guide, right? Let's just take the French Alps, for example, where there's tons of free-ride terrain like the Three Valleys and places like Val d'Azerentine and Chamonix, obviously.

We're talking about some of the best free-ride terrain in the world.

And I'm sorry, that's more than going to compete with resorts in North America that we're talking about.

So we've got, um, our flagship week, so called the Alpine Reset.

That's, uh, essentially the repeat of the week that we launched of this year, so happening again in January 2027, so that's from the 22nd to the 29th, so seven nights in a luxury chalet in Meribel, which is part of the Three Valleys region, so biggest ski area in the world, more than 600 kilometers of skiing all linked under one pass.

Um, and that's in the French Alps in the, in the Savoie region.

So we've got that trip happening, um, again, which is great.

But in terms of the ski areas itself, They're very disparate.

They're not connected in the same way as we might come on to the three valleys shortly.

So you've got to put in a bit of legwork if you're going to go to Chamonix.

The connections between them generally involve getting a bus.

But you don't need to have a guide to show you around everything.

resort i mean potentially some of these ski areas are significantly larger than they might come across in north america and therefore it could be a good investment to rent someone or to hire someone to show you around i mean back in the day in the 90s when i was working in the alps i worked for british tour operators and part of my job was showing guests around the mountains and helping them orientate themselves.

And that actually is pertinent because the next resort I wanted or area I wanted to mention was Les Trois Vallées, Les Three Valleys.

Also on

fantastic was that a family holiday or was that a work

trip to latanya no i was just visiting some friends i spent a few seasons out there in three valleys so know it well there's still some sofas to crash on so

Brilliant.

Well, I mean, regular listeners will know I interviewed Tim Wall, who's the owner of the Ski Lodge, where I imagine you probably spent quite a bit of your time in La Tanya.

And money.

And both my kids were out in the Three Valleys last year, so they also spent a bunch of time at the Ski Lodge in La Tanya.

Today, though, we're going to be talking about the best skis for next winter.

Before we start, I want to make a note about how today's show will be structured.