New Ski Lift in Avoriaz

When I first moved to Morzine I worked in Prodains and using the ancient gondola lift positioned there always felt like a dance with death. It is 50 years old and long past it’s retirement age after all. Before Winter ’12 had officially ended work commenced on replacing the old gondola lift with a new, high speed, high capacity telecabin which will carry 12 bubbles, each with a capacity of 35 skiers. While the old, much loved gondola lift carried around 900 skiers, snowboarders and pedestrians an hour (when it was working that is), the new lift will whizz over 2000 people up to Avoriaz each hour.

We just took a drive up to Prodains to see the progress of the new ski lift in Avoriaz. Those big concrete bulks are part of the new station and I could see the huge pylons in place at intervals all the way to Avoriaz. There’s some speculation locally over whether the new lift will be ready for opening in December this year, while some people claim to have it on good authority that it won’t open until February ’13 at the earliest. Either way, there were about 20 people working on the site this afternoon so progress certainly looks promising.

And what of the old lift? Someone told me a local bar owner has bought one of the two gondolas and plans to serve drinks from it somewhere. I’d like to buy the other one for my garden…