“It’s really nice, it was very frustrating last year”

This is the tradition: Val Thorens, in Savoie, which benefits from its location as the highest ski resort in Europe, is one of the first to open its domain on Saturday, November 20. After a ski-free season last year due to the Covid-19, the reopening is eagerly awaited. In recent weeks, reservations have exploded and professionals are preparing to welcome skiers in large numbers.

For ski patrollers, this is the last inspection, at an altitude of 3,000 meters. “There are panels, there are protections on all obstacles … Here we are ready!“, note Manu, ski patroller for 23 years, and happy to see the activity return to the resort.

“It’s really nice, he smiles. It was very frustrating last year. “ Martin, 26, is also impatient. Even before the ski lifts opened, the Breton set off to storm the mountain, backcountry skis on.

“I was really excited. I had ants in my legs. There, I can’t take it anymore, I can’t wait for it to open! And then it’s the seal skins, but it will be nice to get on a chairlift too. “

Martin, 26 years old

to franceinfo

At the bottom, in the resort, Vincent Lalanne, the director of the Tourist Office, monitors the level of reservations, a record rate for these first days of opening: “We will probably be at 100% since we still have a lot of phone calls, he predicts. People haven’t skied for almost 18 months in a normal way and there is a real appetite to get back to skiing as quickly as possible. They know the weather will be fine, the snow will be fine, so the conditions will be there! “

At the Altapura, the resort’s very chic five-star hotel, located at the foot of the slopes, this is the first briefing of the season for Emilie Pagevic-Hervieu, the manager, relieved to have finally been able to complete her team of 110 seasonal. “Recruitment was more difficult than in previous years, she indicates. We had to put in twice as much, or even three times as much energy. Some have stopped the hotel business, others have changed their path: I put announcements and I saw that I had few answers. I had sleepless nights! “

As stipulated in the sanitary protocol, the mask is compulsory in the queues of the ski lifts and in the cable cars. Laurie Chatellet, the ski lift operations manager, relies on the civic spirit of skiers. “It’s not necessarily obvious, she concedes, but everyone will have to adapt and everyone will have to play the game for everyone’s safety, hoping that it goes as well as possible and that it does not generate tensions either, or conflicts. “ Ten thousand skiers are expected by Saturday evening in Val Thorens, the first of the resorts to open and the last to close next May.