Night skiing in Alpe d'Huez
Fantastic floodlit fun every Thursday night
If you thought that floodlit skiing was solely for the superstars of the FIS Ski World Cup, then think again, it’s going on right here in Alpe d’Huez.
Every Thursday evening you too can ski like pros up at the Signal and Stade red run at the top end of resort. When all the other lifts in resort close and dusk approaches, the newly refurbished Signal lift up at the DMC keeps on going well into the darkness. The Thursday night sessions run for the whole of the season from early December right up the end of April and during the whole of February it’s also open on Tuesday evenings as well.
The lift simply carries on going when all the others close so you can quite easily carry on skiing straight through. However, if you want to get the true floodlit feeling you will need to let it get dark in order to let the lights to truly light up the night sky. In December and January this is quite early at around 17:30, whereas later in the season as the days get longer you will need to head up at around 18:30 and eventually 19:00 in order to allow darkness to fall.
Night skiing is included in your lift pass and if you don’t have a lift pass you can buy an evening pass for €11 from any of the SATASKI offices in resort. The one at the DMC stays open on night skiing evenings especially for this.
Both of the floodlight runs are red pistes and are fairly steep, so bear this in mind for any novices or nervous skiers.
The 2 rows of floodlights fully light up the Stade piste which is the steeper of the two, especially at the top. The left hand of the 2 pistes (as viewed from the top) is the easier of the pistes but is not lit quite as well. On the Stade piste the easier line is down the very far right hand side, hugging the floodlit pylons as you go down. Both of the pistes are at their steepest at the top and get a lot easier towards the bottom.
The views from up at the top in the darkness are truly epic with great aerial views of resort and all the way across the valley to the twinkling lights of Les Deux Alpes in the distance. The vista really is breath-taking.
The Signal restaurant up at the top of the lift stays open as well and is a really lovely mountain top restaurant, and well worth a sneaky visit for a vin chaud. It really is well worth giving the night skiing a whirl when you are here in Alpe d’Huez, but remember to wrap up as it can get really cold after nightfall.
Check out the video to see what it’s all about.
