 Poster: A snowHead
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I don't often post trip reports as I'm lazy and usually go to the Tarentaise resorts which get lots of coverage here, but as we went somewhere less well known this year, I thought I'd put some thoughts down.
Every year since 2008 (other than 2021) I've organised a ski trip with friends. People come and go from the group, with a hardcore of 3 who have come along every year. Some of the group of fairly price sensitive, so we tend to go in January and look for a good deal. This year, one of the options I gave was the Hotel Mont Corbier in Le Corbier, Les Sybelles area, through Sunweb. At £584 for HB plus ski pass, it really did look like a bargain and the group of 10 chose to give it a try.
We travelled out by train as described here. When we got to St Jean du Maurienne station it was snowing very heavily and we were met by our prebooked taxi company who explained that one of their cars wasn't being allowed up to resort by the Gendarmes, so they'd have to take 8 of us up then come back for the last 2. As we set off up the mountain, it became immediately clear why the Gendarmes were taking the conditions seriously, as the car ahead of us broke traction on the road in St Jean. All the way up there were cars stopped in random and inappropriate places, with some trying to sort chains or socks and others who seemed to have given up the attempt. The final run up to Le Corbier felt like we were driving on a ski run, with red poles down the side and the road completely covered in snow. I've skied red cat tracks with considerably less snow. What would usually have been a 25 minutes drive took more like an hour.
Once we got to the hotel, we couldn't check in until 15:00 and no-one really felt like rushing out to ski, so we went and had a nice lunch (at least the first 8 did - the 2 waiting in St Jean were taken out for coffee by the driver of the car that wasn't allowed up the hill.) I then went to the lift pass office to exchange the Sunweb vouchers for lift passes. This was a masterpiece in French bureaucracy and took ages. The process went something like:
- read printed vouchers very slowly
- laboriously compare to printed list already in the pass office
- slowly load up 10 passes
- carefully handwrite the first name of each person on each pass
- cross-check passes against list
- associate printed receipt with each pass, by carefully matching up numbers and attach it around pass with an elastic band that stopped me seeing the handwritten name
It took ages   Those needing gear then went at picked that up and some of us made a quick trip to the surprisingly well stocked Sherpa supermarket.
By this time the hotel had opened reception, so we could check in. Unlike some hotels, they let me check in the whole group, and just gave me the keys to all 5 rooms. This then allowed us to allocate the double vs twin rooms correctly, which Sunweb had somehow got confused about. I've put my thoughts on the hotel here . Overall, it was great value, but with a couple of niggles.
I quite enjoyed exploring a new ski area. @definella has already described much of it in their excellent report here. There had been a bit of a snow drought before we got there, so lots of the runs had been close. With so much snow falling so quickly, they steadily opened up runs through the week, with pretty much everything open by the Thursday. It's really 3 areas that meet at L'Ouillon: Le Corbier, inc Saint Jean d'Arves; Saint Sorlin; La Toussuire, inc La Bottieres. To pass through the L'Ouillon central area, you have to do at least one easy drag tow in each direction. I probably preferred the Saint Sorlin area, for its variety and sense of travel, but some of the reds in the Le Corbier area were great. The ski area is at a similar level to most of the La Plagne area, but doesn't drop as low (and doesn't go as high as the glacier), so snow quality was fine. It took me a long time to get my head round the layout of the area, as the ski map really warps it - I found openskimap really helped with that. I didn't bother with Les Bottieres, as it was quite a trek across there and involved riding the slow old Grand Truc lift, then drag tows to get out. I'm not convinced any of our group bothered to go right down there.
The ski area is really picturesque, with beautiful views across to Mont Blanc on a clear day. Le Corbier gets a really bad rep for being ugly, but I didn't think it was that bad, and certainly no worse than Aime 2000 in La Plagne. La Toussuire is, however, pretty ugly in my view.
 View from our hotel balcony on the first night - plenty of snow
 Lunch at Le Bouj at the foot of the St Jean d'Arves lift
 Sunset over the mountains
 Looking across to Mont Blanc
 The beautiful blue Long Combe piste
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Sat 31-01-26 20:51; edited 6 times in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Great writeup @sugarmoma666, I agree with a lot of what you said! I'm glad you got some good conditions following your arrival day snowfall.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Enjoyed, it's an under rated area for sure. Thats a bargain, I am sure I have seen the same hotel on Sunweb with an all inclusive option?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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A very good TR and interesting to see one about an area that doesn’t feature often on snowHeads.
I was last there in 1989! I remember not being impressed with La Toussuire and spending 80% of my time skiing in the Le Corbier sector. Also had some days at Les Karellis, which benefits from north facing more snowsure slopes.
How good is the lift system these days? If you had to choose between Le Corbier and Les Saisies as a base, which would you go for?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@PeakyB, the lift system is mostly pretty good. There are a few slow old lifts around but you can generally avoid them. And you need to do easy button tows to move between the 3 main sectors.
Your question about whether I'd choose Les Saisies it Le Corbier as a base is a really interesting one. In some ways the areas are very similar, with both being resorts popular with French families but little known in the UK. On paper (courtesy of Openskimap) Les Saisies has 177km of runs if you include the whole Espace Diamant, but the area isn't well linked and some of the satellite areas go very low with slow lifts or drag tows out. Unless things have changed in the last couple of years, you need to be comfortable on some challenging drag tows to ski the whole of the Espace Diamant. Les Sybelles has 139km of runs (again courtesy of Openskimap and much less than the advertised 300km), but this is primarily at a slightly higher altitude. I loved Les Saisies for the tree lined runs which are sadly very limited in Les Sybelles and Les Saisies is more of a real village. However, I think for skiing I'd probably choose Le Corbier due to the bigger mountain feel and greater sense of travel.
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@sugarmoma666, thanks for your well thought through response. Sounds like the LC lift system’s been well invested in over the decades.
On my Le C vs Les S question, I must admit I’d expected Les S to get the nod, though I’m not sure why. The Maurienne valley, especially with a car available, sounds tempting for a return visit. The back door option via Orelle to Val Thorens an added incentive for me but mostly to try some smaller areas for the first time.
Food for thought.
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Great report @sugarmoma666, including on the other threads.
I have a friend who has been and said it was pretty good but I've not made it yet.
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@sugarmoma666, thank you for the report!
Starting from le Corbier, you didn't miss that much not going to Les Bottières. I visited La Toussuire once (about 20 years ago, college trip), didn't love it (bleak, short runs), did venture out to Les Bottières a couple of times and still remember the long runs with the view over the huge aluminium plant in the valley down below, but getting there and back was a trek even from La Toussuire.
Probably a bit better now (the most obvious route back then used an excruciating 2-seater chairlift, Gorges, or some drag lift, perhaps Marolay or Chaput), but still a lot of slow lifts on that side (Soleil, Grand Truc, the Bottières drags which aren't of the fast Poma variety).
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@Layne, I think it probably only fits sensibly with your normal skiing weeks if Easter is early. Definitely worth a visit.
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