Warming up in Alpe d’Huez

13/03/2025

From Les2Alpes we just had to head across the Oisans valley to the ski resort we could see in the distance – Alpe d’Huez. We’ve been here before but we couldn’t really remember much about the skiing,

Alpe d’Huez abounds with options for motorhome ski-ing, with aires and campsites in Vaujany, Auris en-Oisans and Allemond that all have easy access to the lifts. Our choice for this visit was the very central Altiport (heliport) car park.

Before we could get ourselves up the 21 hairpins to Alpe d’Huez we first had to descend to the valley and pick up some provisions at Le Bourg d’Oisans. This convenient town obviously is used to serving the needs of people who are driving up to the heights of the ski resorts. We topped up our stores and did some washing.

Alpe d’Huez Altiport

Once we’d climbed the 21 switchbacks (did I mention them?) we found our way to the Altiport parking area and were slightly surprised to find it partly cordoned off and full of cars. A row of motorhomes down one side looked like they had been there for some time, a few others were scattered amongst the cars, but there was no space for us. The Bergers lift car park we had just driven past was also full. Such is life when you wing it and aren’t booked into a campsite. We decided that we would wait for someone to leave and parked up blocking in a couple of cars. This meant one of us needed to stay with the van until a space was made, just in case the owners of the cars came back. We settled in to wait.

After a couple of hours people started to trickle back to the car park. A few cars obviously hadn’t moved for some time, but fortunately for us there were people packing their skis away and driving off. It took a while for someone to make a space big enough for us, but we finally got parked up and settled.

Tomorrowland

We found out why the Altiport car park was cordoned off when we went for a walk around town. We saw what looked like building activity, and lots of timber fencing. We finally twigged when we saw some signage about wearing wristbands. It was preparation for the Tomorrowland festival, a multi day dance festival that takes over the resort for a week in March. The preparation was very large scale, even extending to locations on the slopes. We took a little look at the tickets (which were all sold out), you can buy a combined festival and ski pass for about £150 per day, it’s definitely not cheap. Maybe I’m just getting old but I cant imagine having the energy to ski and rave in the same day or probably even in the same week.

Skiing Alpe d’Huez

This is another busy resort, we enjoyed a couple of days skiing but the combination of busy slopes and increasingly warm weather made our minds up, we would save our money for better conditions and quieter slopes. I think that the whole ski area suffers from having some key junctions which just get overwhelmed with people. And it’s so popular.

Heading back to Vaujany

On our first skiing day we moseyed over to Vaujany where we’d enjoyed a stay back in 2019. We decided that the aire in Vaujany looked much more comfortable, peaceful and scenic than our carpark stopover. With a couple of work days impending, and some overcast weather on the horizon, we also determined it would be better to be on hook up.

We drove back down those 21 hairpins, wondering at the masochistic Sunday cyclists puffing their way uphill. After the downhill our uphill drive passed through Allemond, where there is a new gondola service that rises up to the Oz en Oisans sector of Alpe d’Huez. Allemond looks like a village revived compared to how it was a few years ago. The gondola must have bought some investment with it as well as plenty of tourist footfall.

Vaujany is not much further uphill past the reservoir, much lower than the places we’d been staying recently. The grassy slopes of the mountains made that clear as we drove past. The snow was on distant peaks rather than lying on the ground around us.

We remembered not to follow the sat nav on the way into Vaujany. Not that it’s a major issue, but it’s much easier to avoid the village and just turn right along the Route de la Drayre rather than go around the houses. The aire was very quiet, just three vans, making it easy for us to get settled in. We paid for a week’s stay. Not necessarily intending to stay for a whole week, but it’s €20 a night or €90 for a week and we were pretty sure we’d be here for at least 5 nights.

We wandered around the village, aided by the escalators, lifts and stairs that have been installed to deliver skiers from the higher reaches of the village down to the huge cable car that crosses to Alpe d’Huez. Much of the village is just as we found it five years ago, although building work has added a few apartment blocks and chalets. The village still has a lovely friendly family atmosphere, far from the Tomorrowland party town.

Snow day in Vaujany

During our first night we were rained on. It’s been a while since we’ve had the drumming of rain on the roof and it woke both of us up a couple of times. We crossed our fingers that rain down here would translate to snow in the mountains and when we woke up we could see the difference on the cliff in front of us. We had snow. The morning’s skiing was excellent, the snow had been left on most slopes allowing us to ski on ungroomed snow. By the afternoon this was starting to get churned up by the sheer volume of skiers. We retreated back to the Vaujany slopes where it was a little quieter.

Spring Walking

The new snow didn’t linger for long. The following day I was working and by the Wednesday the sunshine was back out and conditions weren’t looking great. The south facing mountains were looking lovely though, dotted with enthusiastic spring flowers taking advantage of the mild conditions. We followed their example, the avalanche danger warnings had been removed from the paths and we were ready for a walk.

Our first walk was up the valley, under the Montfrais lift, through the hamlet of La Villette and up towards the Col du Sabot. The cloud swirled around us, sometimes settling into the valley below us, and sometimes rising above.

We didn’t make it to the Col as we hit snow at about 1700m and didn’t have snowshoes, but we managed to turn it into a sort of circular walk by following the road back down to a leisure area and then taking a higher path back to Vaujany. At the top we were surprised by a group of skiers who were using the snowy road as their ski run.

In the area above La Villette the rocky ground made way for grassy tussocks with rivulets running through them and boggy expanses that looked as though they had rat runs through them. We guessed that the tunnels and pathways were probably made by voles running around under the cover and insulation of snow. But in my compost heap I would definitely have blamed it on rats.

The following day we trotted off in the other direction towards the Le Collet viewpoint that overlooks the reservoir of Lac du Verney.

The first part of the walk traversed the hillside on a lovely primrose and crocus strewn path. Unusually there was a fat seam of slate in the limestone. Then the path became steeper, taking a direct line up the slope through the trees. At the top there was enough compacted snow and ice on the path to make us glad of our microspikes to stop us slipping back down.

At the top of the path was a small abandoned reservoir. Paul decided we should climb up the rocks beside the fence, a slightly daunting activity but we were rewarded with amazing views over the Oisans valley from our rocky vantage point.

The actual viewpoint was slightly downhill from here, at the top of a road that was covered with a good half a meter of snow we had to wade through. It must be a nice spot in the summer with picnic benches overlooking the vistas.

Again we followed the road back down so that we weren’t just re-tracing our steps. We ventured back into Vaujany village for something to eat. We’d been expecting to go and watch that Ice Hockey that evening, but Vaujany had been knocked out of the tournament after the animation brochures had been printed. Instead we planned out next steps.