Les Sybelles

During week 11 I had some friends coming over from Sweden we were going to do some serious skiing. We actually did the booking before I knew I was going to move to Grenoble, the ski area we were going to is called Les Sybelles and the major villages are Toussuire, Corbier and Saint Sorlin d'Arves. They were quite happy about me moving here since I could pick them up at Geneva airport avoiding the long and tiresome bus trip.

Grenoble
First day we spent in Grenoble doing some sightseeing visiting some of the cafés down-town, taking the cable car up to the La Bastille drinking some Chartreuse. In the evening we had a Raclette session in my apartment gormandising on Raclette cheese and some interesting saussicons bought for this occasion only. After the dinner we headed out on the town exploring the city night life. Also big thanks to Fredrik who lent his apartment to me for the weekend, giving us plenty of room. I do sincerely apologise for the car parts and the vomit found in his apartment afterwards.

Saturday in Oz
We woke up on Saturday with beautiful sunny weather I also had a plan. Since our accommodation in Saint Sorlin d'Arves wasn't going to be ready until the afternoon I suggested that we could go to a nearby station driving the mountain pass Col de la Croix de Fer (pass of the iron cross) to Les Sybelles after skiing in Alpes d'Huez during the day. This was a good plan since google maps said it was only a 30 min drive over the mountain. Well this turned out to be really bad idea since the pass was closed and will not open until late May, the consequence of this was that we were forced to go back to Grenoble, this detour around the mountain range took us almost 2,5 hours. The day in Oz and Alpe d'Huez was however great, with some of the best skiing during the trip it was however only myself and Peter that was skiing, Andy and Jesper was feeling hangover or whatever and stayed in Oz testing the local pizzerias.

Les Sybelles
We were staying in a small calm village called Saint Sorlin d'Arves there is not much there besides some old churches a cheese cooperative perhaps it is most famous for its regularly features in the Tour de France route. Well we were staying in a quite crappy room containing some nice mold, spider webs and two guys from Gothenborg. We however quite fast found our place in this misery in a place called Beau Soleil with fresh interior and a cozy bar we were happy. We spent every evening in Saint Sorlin d'Arves hanging in this place. Another favourite in Saint Sorlin d'Arves was the l'Avalance café which was a quite nice bar featuring some really good live music.

The slopes in Les Sybelles are not very challenging and the altitude is not high but the system in whole is of decent size and if you relax and not stress the skiing, the area is more than ok for a whole week.



But the the single best thing with trip was the weather. Every day was sunny and warm, some days while eating lunch in the slopes we were probably having over 20 degrees. Of course the quality of the slopes deteriorate because of this, and the last day we were skiing in milkshake. Instead we enjoyed the terrace bars up on the mountain ridges drinking beer in the sun.


Now I'm looking forward to the next ski excursion to Verbier Switzerland, in the beginning of April.