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Using Orelle to avoid traffic to La Tania!

Posted Tue 18 Feb 2025

A great little adventure from Doug – an Escapade in a Day Veteran who used the Zip Line for the Escapade!

Doug’s story of the day – influenced by the road closure near Moûtiers due to the rock fall (which turned out to be sorted by the time of his trip but with all the planning, it had to be done!).

Lad 3 and I were flying BA to LYS scheduled to land at 10h30 CET (deplaned at 10h50). With no checked bags and luck with the car rental shuttle, we were on the road at 11h30. The “usual” time to Orelle from LYS is around 2 hours, but this was changeover day on a multicountry school holiday week, just getting to the A41 turnoff to GNB took ages, and we arrived at the Orelle parking lot (Telecabine I) at 14h40, and were in Orelle 3000 to hire kit at 14h50.

(Quick shout out for Orelle 3000: we sprinted into the shop, and with a mishmash schoolboy french I announced that we had reserved kit but needed to ski to La Tania *today*: the staff quit serving everyone in the otherwise packed shop and sprang into action like an F1 pit crew (sorry other patrons, we must have looked like nutters)).

On the gondola up at 15h00, we changed in the gondola (boots only, no time to repack, so we skied in civvies: I was in full Surrey dad uniform of jeans, button down shirt and a quarter-zip) and were at the top of Cime Caron at 15h30.

Skiing with a 30kg+ rucksack on unfamiliar skis is an experience, and it took the entirely of Cime into Val T proper to work out any semblance of form. Up and over into Méribel, then we got to TS Loze at 1659; yes this was pretty slow but once I unbuckled the hip and chest belts the bag acted as a dampner and made skiing easier. Bouc Blanc and Folyères were properly dodgy with ice, but we took it easy and made it down in one piece for a celebratory pint (or four) at Le Pub Ski Lodge at ~1715.

The rest of our syndicate (with arrivals in GVA, LYS and GNB around 10h30) had made it to La Tania around 16h15, which was a technical, but not a moral, win.

Is this a good idea? From LYS (or GNB), maybe but you need an earlier flight because it is really stressful. But from TRN? That may be a good option, only 100km away, as long as you are not very precious about your luggage.