Over the first half of my week in the Maritime Alps, I visited three pretty diverse ski areas and #4 was equally different from the others. Late afternoon on Tuesday, I drove a half hour from small, atmospheric, and proudly throwback Roubion to the animated but relaxed ski village of Valberg that averages more than 300 days of sunshine a year.
At dinner that evening, I got chatting with a few French visitors at the next table and wondered aloud why a town in the south of France had what seemed like a Germanic place name. I was quickly corrected -- Valberg is a contraction for “Vallon des Bergers” or the Valley of Shepherds. Founded in 1936, it’s both the oldest ski area in the Maritime Alpes (celebrated its 80th anniversary a couple seasons ago) and the closest full-service ski village to the Cote d’Azur (only 32 air miles from Nice) with all sorts of options, including snowshoeing, swimming, horseback riding, sledding, and that week even a standup comedy festival.
Having had so much fun on my evening snowmobiling two days earlier, I signed up for a group ride departing the following morning at 7:30. While staying in bed for another hour would’ve been my preferred activity, I was glad to have come along within a couple minutes of getting on the sled. The quality of light at sunrise -- which unfortunately doesn't quite come across in these photos -- was gorgeous:
Not as challenging as the ride in Auron a couple days earlier, but a nice, leisurely outing surrounded by beautiful scenery: worth the early wake-up. About 30 minutes in, the monsieur in charge unpacked a breakfast of coffee, tea, and croissants.
By 9:15, I was booting up and looking forward to a circuit similar in layout to Park City's The Canyons. A series of rounded peaks with 54 miles of trails, a vertical of 1,900 feet, and as always over here, lots of lightly-touched offpiste. There's much more breathing room between the cut trails and terrain sectors than it appears in the trail map.
Valberg's extensive snowmaking capabilities have been critical as, similar to Roubion just to the east, the preceding three years offered very modest natural precipitation. This season has been closer to average, but still a bit below. As Fraser Wilkin mentioned earlier, this winter's bumper crop of snow in the north/northwestern Alps has no effect on the Maritime Alps and vice-versa -- they're two completely different weather zones.
In addition to high-speed cruising on buttery soft groomed trails, I found some chalky chop from two days earlier:
Had a delicious lunch with locals Lionel and Rémi next to a snowmaking basin known as Wapiti Lake:
Toward the end of the day, I headed back into town:
And checked out the Twizy, a two-seat electric car from Renault, The town has a small fleet of them that you rent, similar to a Citibike in NYC.
You put your planks in the back and cruise around town instead of clomping around in your ski boots:
I zipped up the hill to check out the golf course and just missed the sunset, but still a nice photo opp:
In short, a beautiful ski area with mostly relaxed upper-intermediate piste skiing, quite a bit of offpiste (given a sufficient base), and a cute village.
At dinner that evening, I got chatting with a few French visitors at the next table and wondered aloud why a town in the south of France had what seemed like a Germanic place name. I was quickly corrected -- Valberg is a contraction for “Vallon des Bergers” or the Valley of Shepherds. Founded in 1936, it’s both the oldest ski area in the Maritime Alpes (celebrated its 80th anniversary a couple seasons ago) and the closest full-service ski village to the Cote d’Azur (only 32 air miles from Nice) with all sorts of options, including snowshoeing, swimming, horseback riding, sledding, and that week even a standup comedy festival.
Having had so much fun on my evening snowmobiling two days earlier, I signed up for a group ride departing the following morning at 7:30. While staying in bed for another hour would’ve been my preferred activity, I was glad to have come along within a couple minutes of getting on the sled. The quality of light at sunrise -- which unfortunately doesn't quite come across in these photos -- was gorgeous:
Not as challenging as the ride in Auron a couple days earlier, but a nice, leisurely outing surrounded by beautiful scenery: worth the early wake-up. About 30 minutes in, the monsieur in charge unpacked a breakfast of coffee, tea, and croissants.
By 9:15, I was booting up and looking forward to a circuit similar in layout to Park City's The Canyons. A series of rounded peaks with 54 miles of trails, a vertical of 1,900 feet, and as always over here, lots of lightly-touched offpiste. There's much more breathing room between the cut trails and terrain sectors than it appears in the trail map.
Valberg's extensive snowmaking capabilities have been critical as, similar to Roubion just to the east, the preceding three years offered very modest natural precipitation. This season has been closer to average, but still a bit below. As Fraser Wilkin mentioned earlier, this winter's bumper crop of snow in the north/northwestern Alps has no effect on the Maritime Alps and vice-versa -- they're two completely different weather zones.
In addition to high-speed cruising on buttery soft groomed trails, I found some chalky chop from two days earlier:
Had a delicious lunch with locals Lionel and Rémi next to a snowmaking basin known as Wapiti Lake:
Toward the end of the day, I headed back into town:
And checked out the Twizy, a two-seat electric car from Renault, The town has a small fleet of them that you rent, similar to a Citibike in NYC.
You put your planks in the back and cruise around town instead of clomping around in your ski boots:
I zipped up the hill to check out the golf course and just missed the sunset, but still a nice photo opp:
In short, a beautiful ski area with mostly relaxed upper-intermediate piste skiing, quite a bit of offpiste (given a sufficient base), and a cute village.
