France’s Biggest Ski Resorts Go Pocket-Sized

Expert skiers reveal the secrets of France’s largest ski areas in four new Snowfinder guidebooks published this month.

Designed for use on the mountain, the pocket-sized books cover almost 2,000 km of pistes in the country’s largest ski areas: Les Trois Vallées, Espace Killy, Portes du Soleil and Paradiski.

Written by a team of expert skiers and snowboarders selected for their exhaustive knowledge of each resort, the books combine full colour piste maps with individual descriptions of each run to help skiers plan their day on the slopes.

The team of writers, who include BBC presenter Graham Bell, Olympic medallist Alain Baxter and world mogul champion Eric Berthon, add insider’s tips on where to find the best powder, mountain restaurants and après ski.

Snowfinder publisher Nick Rink said: “I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen people sitting on a chairlift trying to unfold a soggy piste map only to have the wind tear it to ribbons, and that’s where the Snowfinder concept was born.

“Our focus has always been on the piste, so what you get with our Snowfinder ski guides is a comprehensive summary of all the marked runs at a resort. Our books are so small you won’t even know you’ve got them in your pocket, and they don’t rely on battery power or a 3G signal to give you the information you need on the mountain.”

Snowfinder Les Trois Vallées draws together information on the resorts of Courchevel, La Tania, Méribel-Mottaret, Les Ménuires and Val Thorens. Together, one of the largest ski areas in the world extends to 600 kilometres of interconnected slopes accessed by 180 ski lifts.

Snowfinder Espace Killy covers the highly popular resorts of Val d’Isère and Tignes with a combined ski area extending to 300 km of pistes. This book features contributions from Graham Bell and Hugh Hutchison.

Les Arcs, Peisey-Vallandry and La Plagne feature in Snowfinder Paradiski, an area which extends to 425 km of pistes served by 160 lifts. British Olympic snowboarder Lesley McKenna reveals her favourite runs and après ski in Les Arcs, while ex-world cup mogul skier Fabien Bertrand provides the insights for La Plagne.

Finally, Snowfinder Portes du Soleil focuses on the four major resorts of the dozen which make up this vast ski area straddling the French/Swiss border: Morzine, Les Gets, Avoriaz and Châtel.http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/images/uploads/hotel/ski-resorts-snowfinder.gif