Knee Deep in White Powder (Isola 2000)

Member Name: markw-d

Product:	Isola 2000
Date:	30/01/02 (2857 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No crowds during the week, Only 90 mins from the airport, Great food

Disadvantages: Long way south (warm), Weekend crowds

Billy no mates……that’s me!

Or to be more accurate, Billy crap mates, Billy with mates who are under the thumb, Billy with mates who can’t ever make a decision, or Billy with mates who have no spirit of adventure.

Well the name is Mark actually, but the preceding rant goes some way to explain why I ended up travelling alone to Isola 2000 to go Snowboarding this year. Read on, and I will tell you all about Isola 2000, the pitfalls and advantages of travelling solo, and a little bit about snowboarding, skiers, the French, Nice airport, car parking at Manchester airport, the Euro, Club Pavilion and Last Minute.com.

Selecting and Booking
Having got halfway through January and still acting as an unpaid travel agent for a group of lads who couldn’t make up their minds about dates or finances, my patience broke and I decided to just go…and find snow. Off I trotted to the high street travel agents and found the square root of nothing available for a last minute get away. Now that’s not to say that there wasn’t anything available at all…it’s just that it’s not obvious. You have to sit at a terminal for ages with one of the counter staff while they consult the slowest computer system in the western world. One girl in Going Places in Burton said that she would log on later when it was quieter and call me back…she didn’t. (why do businesses do that?)

Apart however from the lack of obvious deals, this is when the spectre of solo travel first raised its unpalatable head. You see when you come across those last minute bargains which are at brilliant prices, they are usually based on 4 people sharing a shoebox. There are significant penalties for only having two sharing, but horror of horror if you are one person going alone, not only are there no tarrifs to cater for you, but there is an immediate assumption that you have some kind of fatal or dangerous social d
isorder.

The bottom line is that you end up paying up to 4 times the price you see advertised, if that is, you can get the computer to accept “one person”.

I then resorted to the Internet. No, not for someone to go with, but to have a look for these last minute bargains which people always talk about, and struck gold. Welcome to LastMinute.com. They had many many late snow deals going, however the one which leapt out was a week in Isola 2000 for only £89.00 including flights and transfers and leaving on the 20th of Jan, which was my preferred date.

Having filled in the on-line form and added the £150.00 supplement for “one person” my bill actually came to £239.00, which whilst not the £89.00 advertised was still within my budget. First problem. When I entered the holiday details it added it up to over £300.00 so I telephoned them to query this. They promised to get back to me and surprise surprise they didn’t (why do people in business do that?).

Not to be put off however I persisted and the next day phoned them again. I didn’t expect an apology for not calling me back…and I didn’t get one! They did however confirm that their price builder had got the calculation wrong and that the price would as I expected be £239.00. Hooray……I booked it.

The next thing which happened was that the Tour Operator, Club Pavilion (www.paviliontours.co.uk), called me, and they were great. A really nice guy called John confirmed all of my arrangements, offered to organise my lift pass, and despatched the tickets (which arrived the next day) and documentation. The only thing left to do was arrange my insurance. This was full on and off piste cover and was £25.00 with Torribles in Bristol 0117 921 1806. They are great and Stephanie has the best accent ever!

So 2 days later and off to Manchester Airport (Gatwick was the alternative).

Manchester Airport
What ca
n I say, its big and planes land there! What is different however is that after years of travelling with either surfboards or snowboards, this trip was the first time when no damage occurred in baggage handling either way.

What did depress me on my return however was the £42.00 they charged me to park the car for 7 days. This has to be the biggest rip off in the world.

So 2 hours later and we are landing in Nice.

Nice Airport
Very nice indeed (no pun intended). This is the first time that the luggage has reached the carousels at the same time as the passengers. Outstanding! We met the rep Hugh Felton (another nice guy) and onto the coach for the 1.5 hour transfer to Isola 2000. This is when a bit of a warning bell started to ring. Just how much snow would there be within a 90 minute coach ride of the French Riviera?

So 90 minutes later and we are arriving in Isola 2000.

Isola 2000
First of all, don’t bother looking for this resort in the high street brochures as Club Pavilion are the only UK operator to go there. Apparently Ingrams and Crystal used to but don’t anymore. This is a very localised French resort and English is not widely spoken or understood. This is obviously not a problem if you, like me, are fluent in speaking loudly and slowly whilst making hand signals!

The actual village of Isola is deep in the Valley and is a typical French rural alpine village. Isola 2000 is a purpose designed snow resort built in the seventies, 2000 metres up a very winding road in the bowl of half a dozen mountain peaks.

I have to say at this point that I don’t buy that its 2000 metres, as its still below the tree line, however I’m sure that the Isolans would argue the point passionately.

The resort I’m afraid does look like it was built in the 70’s and certainly wouldn’t get any design awards from Prince Charles. This place makes Tignes look pretty! It is
however very self contained and functional with nearly all of the restaurants and shops in one central “mall” which faces the slopes.

Considering however that the main clients of Isola are the rich famous and posy of Nice, Cannes, and Monte Carlo the place is scruffy beyond belief. Paint is peeling, rubbish is piled up and swept into corners and the internal corridors of the shopping and eating complex remind you of a 1960’s tenement building. What really amazed me though was the amount of graffiti (Nice was the same). We sometimes assume that the sophisticated continentals do not suffer from the same social ills as Britain, but let me tell you the graffiti is certainly more widespread over there. The graffiti in Isola 2000 was mainly childish “tags”, and these were everywhere from the inside of cable gondola’s to the main walls of the resort, through to obscenities about the USA (probably sprayed by youths wearing baseball caps, Nike trainers, and Levis!).

My fears about lack of snow were initially founded also as the resort hadn’t had a flake for over a month and although the resort level pistes were open, a lot of snow immediately around the buildings had long gone, revealing litter, rubbish, old bits of masonry, bottles, rocks etc. It forced you to think about what is often under the powder which you so happily leap about in.

We stayed in the Les Adrets apartments which are brilliantly placed right opposite the shopping and eating area, and less than a minutes walk from the snow. Accommodation is pretty basic but adequate, and the TV does have BBC World (which you will be sick of by the end of the week). They do insist that you clean your own apartment before you leave otherwise they wont refund the 200 Euro deposit. A good thing however is that no-one minds that you take your board or ski’s up to your room, unlike some other places which insist that you leave your kit in a locker room.


I took all of my own gear so I can’t comment on the hire stuff, however as a resident of Les Adrets you do get 10% discount from two of the resort shops and it looked ok. Also from observation the ESF (Ecole Ski Francais) ski schools seemed to be getting good results and had happy students although there were some reported language issues.

Lift pass for 7 days including additional piste insurance was £76.00 and Hugh, our rep had mine waiting for me on the first morning at 9.00 a.m. It’s always a good idea to take the additional local insurance as this prevents any hassle getting off the mountain and keeping your gear if you get crocked.

The Slopes
Only 30% of the resort was open due to the lack of snow, however we were re-assured that the resort had a sophisticated network of powerful snow cannons which would ensure that the 30% remained good. Strangely I never saw these cannons in operation except just prior to the arrival of the weekenders from the Riviera! Piste preparation was pretty good however and they did their best with what they had. It was however very hard and icy, and it hurt when you fell over……a lot!

At resort level there is a really good and long nursery slope, which in total must be over a kilometre long and is perfect for technique practice. What isn’t perfect however is that this whole area is served only by those instruments of snowboarder torture called “button lifts”. For those who don’t know, these are the ancient drag lifts which are designed for skiers to put between their legs to be pulled along in a straight line. For snowboarders, particularly old and overweight ones like me they are as much fun as sandpaper underpants.

Going up into the mountain piste area are three lifts from the resort. One is a gondola which goes to a nice restaurant at the start of three reds and three blue runs, which in turn can access dozens of other runs. There is
a fast 4 man chair which goes again to the top of one blue and two reds, and again the access to the other mountain pistes, and finally at the very bottom of the nursery slope is a 2 man chair which goes up to the same place as the 4 man.

If you are like me and more concerned with getting the technique and style sorted out rather than simply risking your life you can score a great circuit which begins in the middle of the resort, takes you down to the 2 man chair, up to the top of the mountain and then down a 2 km interesting and challenging Blue which brings you back into the resort over a bridge and to where you started so that you can do the whole thing over again.

A word of caution, particularly if you use the gondola, is to really use your piste map to work out where you are going to go before you start. I don’t want to spoil your adventure but the big board at the entrance to the gondola which shows which Pistes are open and closed is actually numbered and labelled wrong! Its one out all the way through and will seriously mislead you. Also there are more of the dreaded button lifts up at altitude where you least expect them so beware! As a guide if the lift name is preceded by TK it is a button.

On a plus side this resort, is as previously mentioned, predominantly a Riviera weekend resort so during the week it is blissfully uncrowded. There are no lift queues, no on slope collisions or incidents, no bad tempers, but also no nightlife.

Big Wednesday
This made the week. Nearby Nice had a 24 hour rainstorm during which they received the entire rainfall for an average January. We got it as snow!

Suddenly the resort didn’t look do bad as much of the rubbish was now pretty and snow covered, but oh boy what a difference powder makes. Clearly it takes more than one day of snow, however much you get to open more pistes, however the additional powder on the existing pistes was fantastic and we had a couple
of days of very excellent carving conditions. These couple of days made the holiday and by the end of Thursday everyone in the resort had a very happy knackered look.

Friday afternoon and Saturday however brought the return of the weekenders and that made the slopes more crowded and less fun, however it still wasn’t the M25! By Saturday some additional slopes were also open.

Apres Ski
Not really this resorts strong point during the week as its so quiet, however the long sunny afternoons did encourage some sunbathing and refreshments in the several piste facing outdoor restaurant / café’s. Snacks were mainly baguettes and toasted sandwiches with a full range of drinks including hot wine (Vin Chaud). A nice light lunch would set you back about 8 Euro’s (£4.80).

At the end of the ski day however, when everyone in St Anton gets slaughtered at the Krazy Kangeruh and then hurtles down the slope into a big pile, in Isola people just go home to their appartments!

This does change at weekends, and on the one night there was some illuminated night skiing.


Restaurants
As you would expect in France the standards in the restaurants were excellent and pretty much all of a high quality. My recommendations however are:

L’Ourson – Located above the gondola station right in the middle of town this is a superb restaurant with nice people and great food. For instance Steak Tartare is 10 Euro’s, Steak Au Poivre is 13 Euros, Tartiflette which is a local delicacy made with potatoes, bacon and cheese is also 13 Euro’s and they have some excellent starters including a snail pie and scallops (St Jaques) brioche. A nice two course meal with half a bottle of wine and coffee for about 30 Euros.

Le Grille de la Lombarde – These guys were outstanding. Man U were playing Liverpool on the Tuesday night and being a French resort no bars actually show English football. A v
ery helpful young lady in the towns 4 star hotel rang around a load of places for me however and discovered that this restaurant could get the match via Canal +. They not only put the game on for me on a massive screen, but they reserved me a table at the front, and treated me to fantastic service all evening despite being packed out. You will find this restaurant right at the bottom of the nursery slope (which is the quickest way down). Their house speciality (steak Rossini) is great.

Goofy Café – Despite the name (which relates to a snowboard stance) this is a nice a good value restaurant with really friendly (and English speaking) staff. Again this is in the main mall.

Cow Club – Weird name but very good restaurant. To get to the Cow Club you have to walk a short distance 50 metres up the nursery slope from the resort centre but here you will find roaring log fires and a great local menu. Try the Raclette which is a big iron table grill to which is attached a piece of cheese the size of the isle of wight which you then melt over various meats and crudités, or maybe the table top barbeque.

Another penalty about travelling alone however is that most of the Speciality dishes in all of the restaurants are only served up for a minimum of two people.

Bars and Clubs
None outstanding really, although the Crocodile had some atmosphere.

Shops
Not much for the non skier or boarder I’m afraid. There are about 12 equipment and ski wear shops, 2 supermarkets, a chemist, and a small gift shop / newsagents. That is it!

Prices in the equipment shops are about the same as here for the labels such as Oakley and Quicksilver etc. What are cheaper however are snow goggles. I bought a really nice pair of Oakley double Persimmon lensed goggles for 65 Euros which is less than £40, and you can pick up Cebe goggles for as little as 18 Euros.

Other stuff to do

There is a car ice circuit wher
e you can either rent a buggy or race your hire car (really!!), skiddoo rides, ice skating and curling and a Cinema (French with English sub titles) available in resort. Failing that you can get a bus to Nice for the day or spend time in the old Isola village.

Observations on skiers

There are a lot of things in life which I don’t understand, like what the first man to milk a cow thought he was doing? Skiers though (and some boarders) really puzzle me.

Why do skiers always go around in packs? I really can’t see why you would escape to the breathless beauty and peace of the top of a mountain and then spend it always within 5 feet of ten other people. Oh and its great when you all just stop dead in a big group on a bend…..it doesn’t make it at all difficult to miss you and still get round the bend in one piece!

Why do skiers still dress like Austin Powers on a bad day? Some of the younger ones have now embraced neutral coloured Quicksilver and Billabong baggy snowboard styles, however there are still too many tight fitting, big lapelled yellow and violet one piece ski suits out there. Have you no mirrors?

Where do your manners go? Given that Skiing is anything but cheap to get into and do, you kind of expect the people who do it to have some elementary manners and common courtesy….no chance! As soon as that lycra headband and 1975 jumpsuit go on, our company directors and captains of ettiquette push, shove and bully their way around the slopes. Heres a tip..if you keep running your skis over my board in the lift queues you can save the air carriage home by wearing them as a bow tie.

Dangerous behaviour – These are the people who would call the police if someone made eye contact with them in the street, however once on the slopes they seem to make it their mission to ski as close to people as possible at speeds which they could not possibly stop at. Here’s another tip…
if you see someone crash to the ground during a difficult manoeuvre or because they are a learner it is unlikely that they are in difficulty. The best thing to do is to hurtle straight at them, only missing them in a shower of snow at the last minute. People enjoy that!

And finally the French…….
I was made very welcome everywhere I went in Isola 2000, and maybe that was because I made an effort to try and speak French. I love visiting France and very much enjoy working and doing business with the French. I have a kind of affection for their cultural idiosyncrasies and love their food and wine. I also believe however that the huge difference between us and them is the true example of why a politically and culturally unified Europe will never happen.

Can you imaging being shown into a top restaurant in London and having the entire table next to you light up cigarettes as you enjoy your starter. On the other hand as a Frenchman can you imagine being told that you can no longer light up wherever and whenever you want. Everybody smokes…everywhere!

Smoking restaurants are now a rarity in the UK, however I haven’t seen may either where you can sit eating your meal with a little yappy dog sticking out of your jacket. Yes they do that too!

If anyone reading this is French and a Skiier, can you explain why you greet each other by shouting Cuckoooo in a high pitched voice, particularly at 3 in the morning?

The Euro
No probs with this…its just another currency, although some people did feel that prices had been raised under its cover. There were a few of the older French people who were still working on Francs and looking like they were struggling with conversions.

The Verdict

I started off disappointed, but grew to like the place, mainly because of the uncrowded slopes and of course Wednesdays huge snow dump. All of this suited me because I went with the sole intention of imp
roving and pushing the limits of my snowboarding. The lack of night life was not an issue because of that but I must confess to being pretty stir crazy by the end of the week after my seventh solo meal with half a bottle of wine and a book.

If you could guarantee the snow and were with a with a small party I think I might give Isola 2000 the thumbs up. Its not however for big wild groups and it won’t suit for people with romantic visions of alpine chalets and wandering milk maids.

My next planned trip to the snow includes the wife and two daughters, and I just know that they will need more than just good snow conditions!!

Summary: