The Big Job
There’s quite a bit going on up in those mountains at the moment. Big monsters that you can’t see are at work, changing the landscape in preparation for the winter.
Yodel spoke to the mountain management company Serma in Avoriaz to find out what it takes to get a mountain ready for the ski season. And we ended up speaking to the Director General himself, Monsieur Alain Blas.
When does the work begin to prepare the lifts and the pistes for the winter season?
We start our piste re-shaping and general maintenance work on the pistes in the spring, a couple of weeks after the season has ended. The work continues right up until the opening of the resort for the winter.
What kind of work is taking place?
On the slopes we are replanting grass and excavating. We also have to ‘pack down’ the pistes too. We’re re-tagging the different runs and new security nets have been installed. Of course there is also the maintenance of all the snow cannons and the lifts too!
How long does it take to prepare a ski lift for the start of the new season? Lets use the Lac Intrets (my favourite!) as an example.
A ski lift the size of Lac Intrets will receive around 800 hours of maintenance between one winter season ending and another beginning.
How many people are working now during the autumn to ready the area for the start of the season?
There are currently 10 Serma specialists working on the formation and maintenance of the pistes themselves before the winter begins. We also have 30 engineers working on the lift system.
What kind of equipment is used to prepare the pistes?
We’re using lots of equipment from mini shovels to large machinery. Some of the tasks we must complete are quite small but others involve moving a large amount of earth.
We heard that there are some new snow cannons being installed - is this correct? How many and where?
We’ve installed 5 new snow cannons in total. Four of them are on Le Plateau (the beginners area) and another is in The Stash.
Are there any other new developments that you'd like people to know about?
We’re excited about the new 3 S cable car which will replace the old gondola lift from Prodains to Avoriaz (as Yodel reported last month, the new cable car will be able to carry up to 2400 people per hour compared to 400 per hour in the current gondola lift).
The official opening date for Avoriaz is 10th December - if there is a good snow fall before then, could the lifts ever open early?
Yes, they could. But if they did it would only be in part of the resort, and we’d only be able to open from the weekend before the official opening.
