Méribel Building Site

I arrived back in Méribel only yesterday evening and to say I’m excited would be an understatement. Quite often I’d post about where I stayed overnight half way down through France, before reaching the Alps. I won’t this time, however for the record it was Nuits St. Georges again in Burgundy. The coffee in France is as strong as ever. The wine is very fine. And the smell of diesel all over your hands when refilling your car is also as you would expect, rather repulsive! It’s great being back in France !?! So what have I been up to since reaching Méribel 24 hours ago? Seeing what has changed since I left in the spring.

This afternoon I’d thought I’d get some fresh air, and go for a stroll, a great way of flushing 850 miles of driving out from the system. A quick sprint down to Chaudanne to see how the new Saulire Express bubble is looking. Hhmmm, still a bit of a building site.

The top of the old bubble station has been sliced off, with the replacement looking rather swish. Granted, it’s far from being finished, but looks good all the same. It appears that the access ramp will start from the side of the information hut. After seeing that, I decided to walk up various pistes to see how it looked further up. The bubbles were moving on the cables, which was a good sign. After a couple of hours of huffing and puffing I made it up to the mid station.

Another reason for going this far up was because I was rather intrigued to see what was going on at the site of the tranquil old Choucas mountain restaurant. Yep, all confirmed. It had disappeared into thin mountain air, and replaced by another massive building site. For those who know Méribel, the big news for this winter was for a ‘Folie Douce’ to reach our valley.

If you are not aware of the phenomenon of a ‘Folie Douce’, see  http://www.lafoliedouce.com/meribel/fr  . Or for a slightly more in your face loud experience,  there is a youtube clip to have a look at http://youtu.be/k_RIxqDKTrA. Controversial and will no doubt be popular. However, still a building site at the moment.

Earlier this morning I needed to go back to Mottaret, a long story and happy to talk about it in person over a Mutzig beer. But hey, guess what, it’s a huge building site up there as well. The final landscaping of the new World Cup bumps (moguls) pitch is being finished off. It’s positioned just to the side of the Combes chairlift, to help you visualise.

Another building site up there is right next to the Bumps stade, the new Plattieres bubble.This next photo shows the Combes chairlift on the right, with the Bumps stade in the middle, and the bottom station of the Plattieres bubble on the left.

I was speaking to a local resident yesterday down in the supermarket, who said that there is no mid station now close to the Sitelle. I haven’t yet been up there so can’t confirm that, however that would explain the super fast uplift for this new bubble.

Apologies if you are new to Méribel and this blog, and you haven’t got an utter clue what this post is about. In summary, the valley of Méribel keeps improving with huge and expensive upgrades each year. As the youtube Folie Douce video clip announces, ‘ARE YOU READY?’

Martin