12 ski facts as snow falls at last
Alpine resorts are finally due a good amount of snow this week - how many of these French mountain facts did you know?
AFTER a disappointing start to the winter ski season, snow is starting to land in the French Alps and should become more abundant in the coming days, according to forecasters.
Forecaster Météo France says: "Snowfall in the mountains will improve considerably" - with temperatures returning to their normal seasonal lows - good news for resorts which had to encourage locals to stay away from the slopes to help preserve what little snow there was.
A wet weather system from the south-west is arriving over the Alps this weekend, with 10-20cm of snowfall expected above 1,300m altitude.
If you're planning a ski trip in the coming weeks, here are 12 facts about the French mountains. How many did you know?
- British explorers discovered Mont-Blanc's Mer de Glace in 1741 and by 1861 Thomas Cook had started packagetours. Alpine Ski Club founder Sir Henry Simpson Lunn also founded the Lunn Travel Agency, later Lunn Poly.
- Grenoble is synonymous with the Alps but it is only 700ft above sea level on a plain between Drac and Isére rivers.
- Mérens little mountain horses from Les Clots in the Pyrenées were used as pack-horses by Napoleon Bonaparte on his ill-fated march on Moscow in 1812.
- In the Alps, sure-footed chamois were almost hunted to extinction in the 20th century. They gave their names to the leather used to polish cars.
- The Vanoise Express cable car links La Plagne and Les Arcs - it take four minutes to cover 3000m.
- Western Europe's highest mountain is Mont-Blanc at 4809m. It was first climbed in 1786 and then, in 1808, by the first woman. The next woman to climb, 32 years later, was dragged up the last 1,200ft by guides. She made them lift her to say she was higher than any man. The English woman Isabella Straton did the first winter climb in 1876.
- Europe's highest outside toilets are sites 4,200 meters up Mont-Blanc. They are emptied by helicopter.
- Morillon's ice rink in Haute-Savoie's Giffre valley can be used all yer as the ice is recycled polyethylene.
- The world's longest ski run is the Vallée Blanche on Mont-Blanc. Its 22km take between four and six hours.
- Mont-Blanc was climbed by future US President Theodore Roosevelt in 1886 and, in 1890, by Frere Achille Ratti, who later became Pope Pious XI.
- London's Savoy Hotel is named after Pierre II of Savoie, the guardian of Eleanor of Provence when she married Henry III. His mansion stood on the present-day site.
- Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle is said to be based on Chateau de Menthon-St-Bernard above Lake Annecy.
