Skiing enthusiasts were able to find the ski lifts of La Clusaz for 48 hours on Sunday and Monday. – Pierrick Aubert / OT La Clusaz
- La Clusaz is so far the only French ski area to have opened its ski lifts to skiers in 2021 on Sunday, before closing them again… the next day.
- The Haute-Savoie resort was keen to “mark the occasion” with the deconfinement, while taking advantage of exceptional snow conditions for the month of May.
- If the gauge was limited to 1,000 people per day, the director of the tourist office of La Clusaz Jean-Philippe Monfort regrets not having been able to apply the health protocol in this way throughout the winter.
La Clusaz regulars would never have thought they could ski in this Haut-Savoyard area in the middle of the second half of May. This was however the case Sunday and Monday for 2,000 privileged, who had rushed on the Internet four days earlier to benefit from these amazing free packages. 35,000 connections were thus noted on the reservation site, while this operation, unprecedented in France in this white season of Covid-19, had been formalized the previous day.
“We made the promise to our customers that we would open as soon as we had the authorization to do so,” explains Jean-Philippe Monfort, director of the La Clusaz tourist office. That was the case from May 19, so we didn’t see why we would wait until the next season to open. We wanted to mark the occasion by thanking our loyal customers, before finding her better in December. “
We will remember this opening of the slopes of #ski May 23 😎⛷🏔 pic.twitter.com/qse5ynjMg9
– La Clusaz (@LaClusaz) May 23, 2021
“It did us a lot of good to see all these happy people”
In order to comply with the health instructions dictated by the prefecture of Haute-Savoie, La Clusaz has opened its Balme sector (summit at 2,400 m) to 50% of its possible attendance, with three ski lifts available (compared to 40 over the entire area), and therefore 1,000 skiers on each opening day. Among them, there were mainly regional ones, but also Swiss, Parisians and Alsatians who came by motorhome.
“We did not expect such enthusiasm and it did us a lot of good to see all these happy people,” says Jean-Philippe Monfort. They had been chomping at the bit all winter and we wanted to give them a nice gift, plus exceptional snow conditions for the month of May. We would have thought we were in the middle of winter. “
15 cm of powder, “a real gift from heaven”
The 1,000 lucky ones who were able to find the ski lifts on Sunday morning set off on 15 cm of powder, “a real gift from heaven”. From 8 am to 3:30 pm, these ski enthusiasts therefore had a blast on Sunday and Monday, in a surreal season… 48 hours in La Clusaz.
“The estate teams have almost returned to normal life for two days,” says Jean-Philippe Monfort. I felt that everyone was proud to do their job again. This is a strong signal that we sent to the authorities. Because everything went well this weekend, and what we did there, taking into account health protocols, we could very well have done throughout the winter season. “