What's New on the Slopes in the Three Valleys

The Three Valleys has been busy recently and this season there are new lifts, new pistes, new passes and even piste bashers.

Across the Three Valleys this season you will be able to use the new Duo Pass. Save €10 per person when you buy two passes for the same date and duration. You can then use your saved €20 to take your beau out for a drink. Lovely.

You can then use your Duo Passes on a number on new lifts.

The new Bouc Blanc six seater chairlift will replace the old and slow Bouc Blanc draglift in La Tania. At a cost of seven Million Euros the new lift will move 2700 skiers a total of 1853m at five and a half metres a second. The elderly Praz juget draglift and Col de la Loze chairlift in the same area have also been removed.

In Val Thorens there is a new high speed chairlift called Pionniers that will replace the old Three Vallées Chairlift.

As this will be open to pedestrians it means you can take the ski out of Après-ski and go for a drink at the Folie Douce without even needing to put your boots on.

Over in Orelle the Peyron lift has been upgraded and now takes just four minutes instead of 15.

So we can expect to see some significant changes on the hill in the Three Valleys and this season there will be some big changes to the pistes as well as the lifts.

In Méribel, the Doron Piste is wider and the new Roc de Fer piste is finished and will be the official World Cup Downhill slope that will be used in the 2015 Ski Word Cup Finals.

The new Innuit Village and extended Moon Wild Piste will be favourites for younger skiers this season where there will be Innuit themed games and a chance to learn about mountain animals.

The famous Méribel Moon Park has been upgraded with new modules. In the Couloir Tournier, the Vertical Experience is now up and running. Here you can scan your lift pass and have your run down the infamously steep 37 degree couloir filmed. This black run is not for the faint of heart but you can have your bravery posted on line for the world to see.

In Courchevel, there has been a new piste added under the Chapelets chairlift in 1650 called Tetras and a new red piste called Altipole created near the Altiport. Several pistes around the Altiport have been renamed and reclassified.

Over in Val Thorens & Les Meniuers, there are some exciting new piste changes too. Three new “Liberty Ride” freeride areas have been created under the St Martin 2, Mont de la Chambre and Masse 2 lifts. These areas are secured but unpisted making safe powder zones for those who want to try off piste skiing in relative safety.

At the top of the Sunny Express there will be a new Speed skiing area and there is also a new 1200m long luge track that runs on rails.

To keep all these lovely pistes....lovely there are some new Eco-friendl-ish piste bashers. S3V is using new hybrid Pistebashers from Pistenbully. Sort of like big Priuses, these run on a combination of diesel engines and electric motors which should cut emissions by 20%.

Looking ahead, more improvements are scheduled for winter 2014-15. The path for the new Foret chiarlift from Le Praz has been cleared and work has begun on this lift. Also ready for Christmas 2014 will be the new Aiguille de fruit six man lift which will replace the old three man lift.

There are plans for a whole host of new lifts in the Courchevel area with €140 million Euros being spent over the next eight years and by 2019 there will be seven new lifts running from all the lower Courchevel resorts. Méribel will install four new lifts by 2022.

So there's plenty to look forward to this winter and even more improvements to enjoy in the long term here in the world’s largest ski area.