Grenoble & Les2Alpes

This was my first solo travel experience in Europe; not “solo” alone but planned, organized, and executed by me. My friend Danielle, a native Vermont skier, and I decided to conquer the Alpes. We knew that BU had a program in Grenoble and a lot of students skied the Alps close to there so we decided to head to the east. It was a 3 hour train ride to Grenoble and when we got off, we searched for our hostel. No luck, so we called the front desk who informed us that we had to take another train to reach our hotel. We bought tickets and boarded the train to Voiron. After a few stops we heard an announcement a jumped off. Since we didn’t see any signs or signs of life for that matter, we went inside to ask the information booth. The woman laughed and explained that we were in Moiron, which is not Voiron (these words are almost impossible to distinguish in French). So we boarded another train to Voiron and then asked another person how to get to our hotel, which was around the tracks, down the stairs, around the grocery store, and down the street. We made it, finally, and checked into a nice hotel. We had frog’s legs for dinner and got up super early to catch a bus to the Alpes!
Which also posed a travel problem- the bus station, which was full the night before, was empty at 7:45am. We waited until 8:15 and called the bus service line. She told us that we had to go back to Grenoble to catch the bus. So we boarded another train and made it to Grenoble to catch the 9am bus to Chamrousse. Chamrousse is the mountain in the Alps that we decided to go to. We asked everyone that we met in Voiron to suggest a mountain in the Alps to ski since there are so many. Chamrousse was the second biggest and the second closest, so we thought that would be the best one. However, when we went to buy tickets for the bus, we couldn’t. There was no explaination, just no. So we asked about the next available bus, which was to Les2Alpes, another bigger, farther mountain. It would leave at 10am. We told the woman that we wanted to take the bus to ski and then come back the same day. But apparently this was more difficult than we thought, or our French was really terrible, because she had to have another person translate. To travel via bus, one needs: aller ticket (to go), retour ticket (to return), and the ski pass (to ski). We had all three and boarded the bus.
We drove for an hour and a half as the bus climbed further up into the mountains. We asked some other skiers where the best place to get off the bus for rentals and the chair lifts. They pointed us in the right direction and warned us that if we didn’t reserve our seats for the return bus, we wouldn’t be able to get back. (Thanks bus driver and ticket sales woman, for omitting that advice.) So we exchanged our ski voucher, reserved our seats for the last bus back to Grenoble and snagged half day rentals.

All geared up, we boarded the first gondola up to the top. We were determined to start all the way at the top and work our way down. The gondola took us to another gondola, and we made it from bottom to top in thirty minutes! That’s the longest gondola ride that I’ve ever been in, and the highest that I’ve ever skied. When we got off, the view was absolutely incredible. We were ABOVE the clouds and the other mountains. We couldn’t even see the bottom of the mountain, or the middle for that matter. So we took 1,000 pictures and set off in some direction. The snow was perfect, fluffy, crisp, and there was tons of it. Each trail was better than the one before and we took almost every chair lift from the middle back up. It was the best skiing that I think I’ve ever experienced. We stopped for some hot wine and a break just before heading down the bottom. Yes, we needed a break before attempting to find the bottom of the Alps. The last run down was the best of the day. The sun was shining, the wine was keeping us warm, and the snow was packed and soft and just perfect. I can’t stress enough that the conditions were absolutely perfect!
After we returned our rentals, we walked through the ski town and stopped in some shops. I picked up chocolate for the ride home. We board the last bus and talked, napped, and snacked all the way back to Grenoble. We ate in Grenoble before heading over the Voiron. At the hotel were passed out and enjoyed a leisurely Sunday of packing and traveling back to Paris (with a lot less confusion).

Moral: Ski the Alps, it’s better than Out West