3 Valleys Escapade – Congratulations to Patrick and his Girlfriend, first of the season!

Catching up on some Escapaders – if you don’t know what this is, see below.

For 2023 we’re checking out a new challenge with 12 villages and 12 peaks/perimeters to tick off – probably 30 lifts in a day required (tough in these energy saving slower lift days). More here on the new ESCAPADE 2023

From Patrick Plaggenborg from The Netherlands:

In the week of my 40th birthday my girlfriend and I went for a ski and snowboard trip to Les 3 Vallees to celebrate. We stayed in La Tania, Courchevel and found out about this ‘hardest skiing day ever’, skiing the most important peaks in the Three Valleys in a single day.

The La Tania crew kept a list of the official checkpoint lifts to ride. However, their last list update was from 2020 and since then some lifts and pistes went out of operation. So I pulled up the latest 2023 maps and created what I felt would be the best 2023 version of the Escapade:

Snow conditions this week were not that good. Lots of thin covered and icy pistes and some crucial connections were closed.

With a busy Christmas holiday week, and the last lift closing at 16:20, it looked like almost impossible.

After 2 attempts the first days with long queues, bad weather, and navigation mistakes on my side, I decided to scout the valleys a bit more before making a final attempt.

On the fifth day, conditions seemed good. It was after New Years so queues were a bit shorter. Visibility was good. Snow was still icy and thin, but definitely ridable. This had to be the day.

By adding some detour lifts and piste alternatives I was able to make it just in time to to the final Forêt lift to get back to my starting point in La Tania.

A wicked day that took an incredible amount of preparation and on-day planning. Oh so satisfying!

More on Patrick’s Site here

What’s this all about?

The 3 Valleys Escapade was the lift company promotion of visiting (originally in 2006) 14 points across the Three Valleys and gaining a certificate & badge over the period of your holiday – then we had the idea of doing it in a day…

It’s probably the toughest day skiing ever for a recreational skier but lots of people have got involved over the years so we feature them in our Escapade in a Day Hall of Fame

This is no longer being promoted by The 3 Valleys but we’ll still stick you in the Hall of Fame if you complete it – send a Ski Tracks or similar trace in plus a pic of your group.

What started out as a late night “is it possible?” discussion became a challenge the following week – the history and our original route are here

Originally punch cards had to be stamped at each check point until electronic passes arrived – they could then be checked by the lift company. The original Escapade was 30 lifts, 13000m vertical and 70km and 2016 peaked with 34 lifts, 17000m vertical (twice the height of Everest) and around 100km total distance. It became a little less for 2017 and 2018 saw the use of the Roc de Tougne fast new chair instead of the drag plus we lost the Montaulever drag altogether. In 2019 we gained the new faster Legends chair out of Méribel and then an improvement in speed on the Mont Vallon lift too. 

It’s certainly getting easier with the improvement in lift infrastructure and we should make it harder for 2023 – there’s now the new Pointe de La Masse and Orelle-Caron Gondolas too! However, it’s still a big, big day out with every run top to bottom and all the planning, chatting, moaning (and lunch) kept for the time on the lifts…

The 2020 PDF route with the 19 “Escapade Lifts” in bold

REMEMBER: You do this entirely at your own risk, act responsibly, take full ownership for your own actions and all of those with you, respect other people (& the mountain), ski & ride within your limits, always obey the skiers & snowboarders code, observe all signs, pay attention to all notices, advice & instructions from Pisteurs, only ski off piste if fully equipped & knowledgeable, it’s not a race (and you won’t be insured), think about the safety of others as well as yourself but above all, take care, don’t wreck things for others & don’t even think of blaming anyone else if it all goes horribly wrong…..