Val d'Isère, a long forgotten hunting hamlet for French royals, is trapped in a dead-end valley, fringing the tree line and surrounded by steep mountains. Snow-filled winters stayed forever forcing subsistence-level living. In 1929 Jacques Mouflier was the first skier and the first to urge the development of tourism - the rest is skiing history. Much of the loosely designed town was rebuilt for the '92 Olympics so now Val d'Isère's more appealing, harmonious and better organized. The Romanesque tower and baroque church, long forgotten in the midst of modernity, are once more an integral part of the town's heart as silent antidotes to our fast paced twenty-first century lives.

Val d'Isère's natives nurture their babies into champions: Henri Oreiller , the Goitschel sisters, and, of course, Jean-Claude Killy. Their Olympic gold evolved from the incredibly extensive terrain in that dead-end valley. The area, almost six times the size of Vail, covers 28,000+ acres and averages over 40' of snow a year. Today Val d'Isère has 100 up-to-date lifts linking 135 runs totaling 180 miles of trails. So impressive are the terrain and facilities, the resort will host the 2009 World Championships. But before then, you, too can try the much maligned Olympic “Face de Bellevarde” downhill or test your knees on Donna Weinbrecht's gold-giving moguls. There's enough from extreme to beginner so no one ever does the same run twice!