Valberg, FR: 02/07/18

Over the first half of my week in the Maritime Alps, I visited three pretty diverse ski areas and #4 was equally different from the others.



Late afternoon on Tuesday, I drove a half hour from small, atmospheric, and proudly throwback Roubion to the animated but relaxed ski village of Valberg that averages more than 300 days of sunshine a year.



At dinner that evening, I got chatting with a few French visitors at the next table about the resort and wondered aloud why a town in the south of France, only 32 air miles from Nice, had what seemed like a Germanic place name. I was quickly corrected -- Valberg is a contraction for “Vallon des Bergers” or the Valley of Shepherds. Founded in 1936, it’s both the oldest ski area in the Maritime Alpes (celebrated its 80th anniversary a couple seasons ago) and the closest full-service ski village to the Cote d’Azur with all sorts of options, including snowshoeing, swimming, horseback riding, sledding, and that week even a standup comedy festival.

Having had so much fun on my evening snowmobiling two days earlier, I signed up for a group ride departing the following morning at 7:30. While staying in bed for another hour would’ve been my preferred activity, I was glad to have come along within a couple minutes of getting on the sled. The quality of light at sunrise -- which unfortunately doesn't quite come across in these photos -- was gorgeous:









Not as challenging as the ride in Auron a couple days earlier, but a nice, leisurely outing surrounded by beautiful scenery: worth the early wake-up. About 30 minutes in, the monsieur in charge unpacked a breakfast of coffee, tea, and croissants.



By 9:15, I was booting up and looking forward to a circuit similar in layout to Park City's The Canyons:



A series of rounded peaks with 54 miles of trails, a vertical of 1,900 feet, and as always over here, tons of lightly-touched offpiste. Valberg skied much wider than it looks in the trail map above.













In addition to high-speed cruising on buttery soft groomed trails, I found a bunch of nice shots with several inches of leftovers from two days earlier:





Had a great lunch with locals Lionel and Rémi next to a snowmaking basin known as Wapiti Lake:



Toward the end of the day, I headed back into town:



And checked out the Twizy, a two-seat electric car from Renault, The town has a small fleet of them that you rent, similar to a Citibike.



You put your planks in the back and cruise around town instead of clomping around in your ski boots:





I zipped up the hill and just missed the sunset, but still a nice photo opp:



In short, a beautiful ski area with mostly relaxed upper intermediate skiing and a cute village.

just when you think it can't get better...

JasonWx wrote

just when you think it can't get better...

this ^^^^^

campgottagopee wrote

this ^^^^^

Camp, we've never met but I briefly thought about you during the three snowmobile rides I went on over there last week. I grew up slednecking on my father's AMF Ski-Daddler west of Syracuse. Felt great to get back on the horse!

Just looked again at the Google Map to see how far south it is, amazin. Looks like nice coverage... any idea how much snow they average?