Sainte Foy Tarentaise : 05 September 2020
The summer’s weather has been kind to this building project and progress continues with gusto. ‘La gare d’arrivée’, the arrival station, at the top of the new Arpettaz chairlift now looks like the arrival station of a truly modern ski lift, which it is!
The shiny exterior contains all the mechanical workings for disengaging each six seater chair as it arrives at the top, so that skiers and borders can get off comfortably and safely. Our last Time to Ski chairlift blog article shows the inner workings of this space age building.
One can only think that in the middle of a blizzard on a freezing cold winter’s day, maintenance and repair will be a slightly easier task to perform!
The wooden underside of the arrival station is aesthetically pleasing, and the views from this part of the Sainte Foy mountain when you arrive at the ancient alpage hammeau of Arpettaz are stunning. We are so lucky to have a ski station with such a combination of forest and mountain scenery, and fantastic views looking over Sainte Foy and down the valley below us.
Construction of the lifties’ hut is well underway. Pisteurs and lift attendants will be afforded more comfort, and it looks like they will have a balcony from which to enjoy the fabulous views. The balcony wraps around the uphill wall giving them viewing access to the upper parts of mountain, which is necessary for the pisteurs in their lookout work.
In this last photograph we can see the arrival station standing proudly on its mound, with the lifties’ hut in front of it. It almost has the appearance of being on stilts, but this will all change when we have our customary two and half metres of winter snow lying all around.
In the foreground of the above picture you can see parts of the pylons lined up ready for construction. We will have a look at the pylons in more detail in our next article.
Read other articles about Sainte Foy on the Time to Ski blog page
