New gondola for Le Tour

While it is long overdue it is fantastic to see that the new gondola for Le Tour will be operational this season 2022/2023 meaning that the Balme ski area will have two excellent access lifts into the area (the other being the gondola from Vallorcine).

Shona and I recently visited Le Tour to have a look at the progress and while it still appears to be a building site (see all the photos below) all the key work has been done and the new 10 seater cabins are on the cable and fully operational.

So why is this upgrade so important?

For us at British Alpine Ski School Chamonix (and our guests) the ski area of Le Tour/Balme has been one of our most used resorts in the Chamonix Valley over the past 17 seasons because the terrain on offer is excellent for so many levels of performance with a great beginners area over at Vormaine, fab intermediate terrain on piste and surprisingly good off piste options all over. So, this new gondola will make a big difference especially at busier times when the access from Le Tour into the area would often see big queues. It also means that the excellent ‘home run’ back down to Le Tour will now be even more usable as there will be no queues to get back up the gondola (the same happened when they replaced the Plan Joran chair with a similar 10 seater rapid gondola at Grands Montets making the Pierre a Ric piste useable at any time of the day or season!).

Apart from the new lift a massively increased uplift capacity there will be a shiny new building on three tiers (see the photos) and upgrades made to the car park surface.

Many of the courses that we run - off piste, bumps, all terrain etc. - happen at Grands Montets and Le Tour. Take a look at our course calendar and contact us soon to book your place. We look forward to skiing with you this winter.