By Philippe Viguié Desplaces (text) and Bruno Mazodier for
Le Figaro Magazine
(photos)
When you arrive in Val-Thorens, the mountains, ordered like a crescent of snow, rise in all their nakedness. White and azure. Nothing else. Here, we only see the ski area and its generous slopes offered to the skier. The resort, gathered in a rare density, as the old Savoyard villages once were, has no hold over the area, which no road network disturbs. A true ski hymn, Val-Thorens is first and foremost a marvelous site. We imagine it fifty years ago, virgin of any ski lift, in the beauty of a forbidden landscape. Its altitude made any idea of development almost impossible at the time. Its designers were pioneers. Because the construction of the station is due only to the stubbornness of the men and to the dreams which boosted their will.Chance was also invited into the adventure. And politics, to which the station really owes its existence.
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