Meribel Snow Report: 9th April 2013

The task was simple. Meribel has 40 different named lifts marked on the piste map. Starting at 09:00 in the morning, I had until the end of the skiing day to ride each and every one of them. My friend Dave, out for a weeks holiday, agreed to join me for the challenge. At 8.55am we met at the Roc de Fer chairlift and waited eagerly for the lift operator to open the gates.

One lift down, we were to jump straight onto the Olympic chairlift and then systematically ski our way from lift to lift on the Olympic side of the mountain, ticking them off. Immediately we hit a problem, the Olympic Express was broken. "Come back in half an hour." the lifty told us. Quickly we re-draughted our route allowing us to work through the rest of the nearby lifts and bring us back to jump on Olympic at the end. Alas, an hour and a half later and it was still broken down.
Our plan had been scoffed at by many of our friends who laughed it off as an impossible challenge. "Who wants to spend all day sitting on chairlifts?" was a common question. "How do you think we are getting from one chairlift to another?" was always my response. There is nothing like telling someone that they won't be able to complete a challenge to spur them on to try their hardest to get it done.

We skied from Tougnete down into Mottaret with seven lifts ticked off of our list and within an hour this number had doubled as we sat in a rickety old bubble lift painted in rasta colours on Platieres 3. Things were running smoothly again and shortly later my girlfriend met us with sandwiches and cake; fuel for the rest of the day.

After reaching the highest point in Meribel, Mont Vallon (lift number 18) we skied down and jumped on a lift that neither of us even knew existed, Mures Rouges. This chairlift can be found half way down the infamous 'Ours' run. An agonising flat track that has been destroying snowboarders' morale for decades.

By the time we left Mottaret we were half way through the day and 23 lifts into the challenge. The sun was up and it was looking achievable, although the Olympic Express was still niggling away at the back of my mind.

We blasted our way from the top of Saulire (from Pas du Lac) to Meribel Village and worked our way through some more lifts. The lifts on this side of the mountain are more spread out and the sun had begun its work turning the hard fast snow into sticky slush so things moved forward more slowly than they did in the heady days of Mottaret.

One frustratingly slow drag lift at Altiport and a rope lift (Fontany) leading to the Rond Point and another area of the mountain was complete. We skied past the Ronnie and stared. People had begun to congregate in the sun and begin their apres session. We debated the possible merits of having a quick beer break but decided it would have to wait. We had worked too hard to start slacking now.

Back in the Chaudanne I had a brainwave. If we made our way up to Olympic, we could then ski down Le Raffort and jump on the Olympe Telecabine that goes to Brides Les Bains and Les Allues - three lifts in one. Then a quick ride up Rhodos 1 and 2 and the challenge would be complete. We just had to hope that the Olympic Express was no longer broken down.

We jumped back on Roc de Fer (our first and only repeated lift of the day) to find that the lift was open. The end was in sight, I began to taste beer in my mouth. Less than an hour later I skied from the top of Rhodos 2 down to the Rond Point with a sunburnt nose and some very tired legs to enjoy a cold beer after riding every single lift in the whole of Meribel and having my biggest day of skiing in the season.

We finished the challenge shortly after 4pm. If Olympic had been open in the morning the challenge would have been a lot quicker but there are problems with different lifts each day so we were quite proud of the outcome.

If you would like to try the challenge yourselves, take a look above at the photos above. Let us know how you get along and if you can come up with a better route!