Shortly after the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville and the Savoie, John Fry, editor of Snow Country and Ski Magazine in the USA, wrote, with supporting figures and a fold-out map, that the seven largest ski areas in North America would fit within the Méribel ski area alone... This tells you everything you need to know about the vast size of les 3 Vallées area.
Apart from its almost inexhaustible off-piste, there are more than 600km of groomed, maintained and avalanche-controlled ski runs.
These are accessible from each of the valleys and resorts of this incomparable ski area thanks to a network of ultra-modern lifts, of which your new Olympe gondola is an outstanding, recent example.
From Méribel, in the very heart of les 3 Vallées, you can easily head to the East, South or West to the slopes of the Saint-Bon valley (Courchevel and La Tania) or the Belleville valley (Saint-Martin, Les Menuires, Val Thorens and Orelle, the ‘fourth’ of our three valleys!) When it comes to vertical drop, les 3 Vallées has few equals: in our own Méribel valley, you can ski non-stop from 2,950m at the summit of Mont-Vallon (a favourite of morning skiers) to the centre of Mottaret, 1,200m below, or even to La Chaudanne in Méribel, 1,500m below.
And don’t forget that for much of the winter, you can ski from La Saulire (2,730m), which links Méribel and Courchevel, down groomed pistes and then forest itineraries all the way to Brides-les-Bains, 2,100m below! And these are just a few of the many possibilities open to you, whatever your skiing level. How’s that for XXL skiing?
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