Skiing in the Vosges, Part 1

Has been a while since I posted here... well, I've been back to Tenerife, and done a fair bit of skiing, but nothing very original.  This weekend though we have a ski trip with a difference, most noticeably in terms of how much it is costing - which is, really not very much.

A weekend ski trip in a campervan you say?

Finishing work on Thursday, I get on the tube and attempt to head to St. Pancras station, sadly the tube has other ideas and I miss my intended train by a minute or two.  But there is another one thirteen minutes later, and this is a rare thing in the UK, a fast train!  After a little over half an hour I'm at Ashford station, and shortly after that my brother Dan and his wife Donna arrive in their camper van, and we all head for the channel tunnel, making our check in with some ten minutes to spare.  The plan then, is to drive all the way to a ski resort, in a vehicle with an effective top speed of 70mph - madness, surely.

Certainly got nice weather at least.

Well, maybe not entirely.  We are whisked through the tunnel, then after a little messing around looking for petrol we're on the autoroute for 9pm local time, and with three to share the driving it's easy enough to keep going 'til 1.30am, by which time we're at an 'aire de campingcar' in the vicinity of Nancy.  France is very well set up for campervans, the whole country is dotted with these little rest stops, complete with facilities for taking on water and disposing of waste - hard to imagine such a system getting off the ground in the UK.  We don't spend much time there though, 6am the next morning and Dan is out of bed and we're off again.  But it isn't too far now, as our destination is the resort of Gérardmer in the Vosges mountains, in the Alsace-Lorraine region.  Not a familiar name to English skiers, and to be honest our expectations aren't too high, I am anticipating slushy snow and long queues.

The Vosges Mountains - not terribly mountainous.

In fact, Gérardmer is a very pleasant surprise.  There is plenty of snow and the skiing is really quite good, and as long as you're willing to use the drag lifts rather than the two slow moving chairs, there is no need to spend much time queueing.  All abilities are catered for with runs ranging from greens through some pretty steep blues and reds, and even a decent black.  Scenery is rather different to the Alps, no rocky pinnacles here, but the gentler, wooded slopes of the Vosges are very pleasant in their own way.  Lovely weather too, and we enjoy a fine day on the slopes before taking the van down to Gérardmer the town, a charming little place by the side of a lake, where we enjoy a beer and a fine meal, before retiring exhausted to the van.

Photos to go with this post can be found here.