Moniteur de ski particulier

The Tignes-Val d'Isère area means over three hundred kilometres of piste between one thousand five hundred and fifty and three thousand four hundred and fifty metres, with two glaciers, the Pissaillas above the Col de l'Iseran on the Val d'Isère side, the Grande Motte above Val Claret on the Tignes side. Sixty per cent of the area lies above two thousand two hundred metres, which explains the resort's reputation for snow and changes how you ski in practice: you hunt less for snow and more for aspect. That is what a private instructor is for, above all. He knows what time the sun comes onto which face, which link to take before eleven, and which slope you should be off by three on a thawing day. We match them to who is skiing: a six-year-old, a teenager eyeing the park and an adult returning after twenty years need neither the same person nor the same patience. One piece of advice we repeat every year without always being heard: book before the autumn for Christmas and February. By December, only the slots nobody wanted are left.