An Extended Stay in Le Monêtiers les Bains

15/02/2025

It seems like ages since we arrived in the aire at Le Monêtiers les Bains. We paid to stay for five nights and then we extended for a further five nights. We got ourselves pretty comfortable but we’re just about to move on. There are plenty more places to discover.

I think one of the reasons we have stuck around for so long is because I’m working. At the moment I’m working on a project which is due to deliver imminently and, despite working two days a week in theory, I need to be on call. It never seems to be the right time to move on. Hopefully next week I’ll no longer need to be available on an ad-hoc basis and we’ll be able to plan a little better.

That doesn’t mean that we haven’t enjoyed ourselves though. This is a lovely village with a rustic and gentle atmosphere. No huge hotels and high rise apartment blocks, and no raucous apre ski, but lots of pensions and rental properties, with small bars and restaurants scattered through the streets. I think it might have become our favourite French ski resort for it’s good value aire, good varied ski area and pleasant vibe.

Thermal springs

Wandering around the streets has been our favourite way of stretching our legs after skiing or hiking, the village has many nooks and crannies on both sides of the main road.

Streets of Monêtiers

The village is named for it’s baths. You can feel the evidence of the local hot springs when you walk along the river here. Warm air is wafted towards you as you bend over the bridges and there are no signs of icicles along the edge of the Guisane river. In the river you can see fronds of algae thriving because of the relative warmth.

The ‘Grand Bains’ have harnessed this warm water and provide a variety of bathing experiences and spa treatments. It was very frustrating that Paul had forgotten to pack his budgie smugglers (the usual French rules of ‘no baggy shorts’ applies), the cheapest pair we’ve found here are €20. In the end we decided not to visit this time, the gloomy days were fully booked and we were on the slopes on the nice days. But we will find Paul some trunks when we next go past a Decathlon.

On one of our walks by the river I managed to get down to it’s edge and dabble in the warm water

Skiing

We have had a few dismal weather days. Our stay has been bracketed by blue skies, but in between we’ve had low cloud and snow and even some rain. Everything turns monochrome in those conditions and much as I love that winter landscape it can get a little depressing when you don’t see the sun from one day to the next. And nothing is worse on a skiing holiday than the pitter-patter of rain on the motorhome roof and imagining the steadily dissolving snow.

On the one day it was obvious that snow would be falling continuously I chose to work rather than sitting in the van doing nothing. Otherwise we’ve skied through the days with intermittent low cloud that occasionally obscured our visibility. Encountering a valley full of fog without any warning can be an interesting experience on skis. One day extremely strong winds closed down some of the higher lifts that link to the rest of the resort. At first it was exciting watching the snow devils whirling on the slopes and being caught unexpectedly in a mini snowstorm. It quickly became tiring trying to descend against the force of the wind. We envy the people who seem to be unaffected by a change of conditions, fog, snow, ice or slush they always ski perfectly. That’s definitely not us, we get by, we manage, but stylish skiing is reserved for fair weather.

Cloud moving in

We feel that we’ve definitely got our ski legs back though, and although we’re not ready for the moguls yet (we accidentally hit one patch which we skied down without any style, but at least without falling on our backsides), we’ve definitely managed a bit of everything else. Steep downhills and cruisy blues, ski-cross runs, hard icy slopes, slushy spring snow and fluffy powder.

Walking

We used the walking track that extends the length of the valley, presumably all the way down to Briançon although we only made it as far as the next village. The walking track ran alongside the nordic tracks that can also be found all along the valley. Watching the nordic skiers shooting past with their skinny skis and super long poles was quite exhausting. We were wrapped up in our warmest clothes but they were in tight winter lycra. It looks like a whole body work out and one day I definitely want to try it. Paul is more interested in the shooting part of the Biathlon experience.

One of the two biathlon arenas by the village

During our stay we’ve had one longer hill walk, up the other side of the valley from the motorhome aire.  Wikiloc provided a route but when we got to the start there was a snowshoe sign so I assume it is also an official snowshoe trail for at least part.

We didn’t take our snowshoes because it didn’t look as though there was sufficient settled snow on the south facing slopes. Instead we took microspikes and walking poles in preparation for hard packed snow and ice. We needed them for the downhill sections that would have been treacherous and slippery without them.

Stretching the microspikes over our boots is hard work

It was a lovely zig zag route up through forest trails with occasional drifts of snowflakes from the passing showers. We plateaued out above a crag where we saw a couple of other people. They were the only others we saw on the whole walk, but the trail was well trodden and signposted so must be reasonably popular.

On the plateau

Le Puy du Cros was the highest point of this route at about 1940m with a chapel and some buildings all shut up against the cold. Our route down took us past another chapel and a couple of crosses on promontories.

We made it back to our start point energised by an interesting route that hadn’t been too strenuous.

We had some amazing views from our vantage point

Rugby, Fireworks and Birthday Celebrations

It wasn’t all outdoors activities while we were here. We had a weekend of rugby, including the England France game. We toyed with going out to watch it and did work out at least one bar which would be showing it, but in the end we stayed in to watch England win. That may have been for the best as it was a tense match.

Rugby watching

It was Paul’s birthday while we were here. It was Valentine’s day too but that’s one of those days that feels too commercialised and is too close to Paul’s birthday.

On Paul’s birthday we had our best skiing day so far with bright blue skies and some lovely conditions due to a good cold night before. It was -8ºC when we woke up and we gave it a couple of hours to warm up under the sun before we ventured out. Despite it now being UK half term for many, and French half term for two areas, it still wasn’t a massively busy day. Just the bottleneck areas had queues that kept us waiting for more than a couple of minutes.

We allowed ourselves a couple of stops on the mountain as a bit of a treat, neither of us really drink alcohol when we ski these days. Paul had hot chocolate and was disappointed by it’s quality. Italy definitely does the best rich thick hot chocolate.

When we got back Paul decided he wanted a pizza takeaway so that he could eat at leisure in his comfy clothes in the van. Being the dutiful wife I went out foraging and rushed back with pizza quickly cooling in the cold night air.

Because the French school holidays have started there have been various entertainments on the slopes. The fireworks on Wednesday night were a nice surprise.

How is the van doing?

The new van has being doing well over the 10 days we’ve been here. We haven’t had any exceedingly cold nights, but a reasonable number below freezing.

Having hook-up helps as we leave a small oil filled radiator to maintain temperatures during the day, and we can keep the electric water heater on. The diesel heating and it’s thermostat have also worked brilliantly. We’ve kept it on with the thermostat at 14ºC all the time and it has rarely been on during the day but occasionally it has come on during the night. By some miracle this has not woken Princess Paul. Result! Needless to say I was awake to hear it come on but that can be blamed on the dreaded menopause rather than any sensitivity to night-time noise.

The van has a lot less draughts than Bertie had so is slower to loses heat. We’ve had to crack the roof vents open most of the time unlike Bertie who was self ventilating.

We have also found another issue with a leak from the inspection cap of the fresh water tank. It’s only when it’s full but Paul has been unable to open the cap to see what the problem is and doesn’t want to force it. So we will live with the leak for the moment and get it sorted when it goes in for it’s warranty issues. It creates a little stalagtite and stalagmite of ice in cold weather but it’s not the end of the world.