Bank Holiday Skiing

April 6, 2010

April is always a quiet time in the ski resorts of the Alps, this must make it a great time to visit! The chalet hunters that are here ski in the morning and look at property in the afternoon. Perfect!

Some of the Alpine Property team managed a bank holiday day out too. We started out at 7.45 am and hiked up for 3hrs to one of the less accessible summits in our part of the Alps.

The pictures follow.

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Posted by Gareth

Morzine Communal Projects

November 15, 2009

morzine

The “Bulletins Municipaux” has just been published in Morzine. This a the newsletter published by the Morzine Mairie 3 times a year. It has always been very informative and this issue is no exception.

I will summarise in a list the projects and stage of development they have reached.

  1. The Tourist Office square, worked restarted here at the beginning of the Autumn 2009, good progress has been made, there is plenty of nice smooth tarmac, open space and quality looking bits of rock disspersed around the area. The outdoor ice rink is scheduled to be complete before the winter and the “square” will certainly be functional by Christmas, there is more work to come however with a very advanced lighting system and work to the surrounding roads scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010.
  2. The work for the wood-burning heating network started in the summer of 2009. This environmentally friendly heating project uses local wood harvested in a sustainable way. This huge project includes 1.4km of heating conduit that snakes around the town providing heat for the Town Hall, Library, Vicarage, ANPE Offices, both the schools, judo and music rooms, the Palais des Sports and the swimming pool.
  3. New pool for Morzine. The plans for this project where but on display at the outdoor pool this summer. The work is due to commence in the Spring of 2010, pause for the the summer and then carry on in the Autumn, scheduled to be completed by the winter of 2011/12. All the existing pools will be retained, the existing changing rooms and restaurant will be removed and replaced with a 25m x 15m indoor pool, a spar, 3 saunas, 2 hammams, relaxation space and new restaurant.
  4. The new Pierre et Vacances apartment project at Avoriaz continues, we have the apartments for sale on our website. The apartment building works start in the Spring of 2010, the Aquariaz project starts in the Autumn of 2010, the second phase of apartment building is scheduled to start in 2011.
  5. The work towards the replacement for the Prodains cable car is due to start in the Spring of 2010 and due to be completed by the winter 2011/12. The cable car that has been proposed linking Morzine to Avoriaz is still in the feasibility study stage.
  6. The Morzine ski company reports that plenty of work has been carried out adding snow cannons and moving snow cannons around the pistes to deal with “gaps” in cover. Everyone will have seen the earth works carried out on the “Retour des Nants” AKA the “Green return piste”, included with this is 6 new snow canons therefore adding another snowsure route back to the foot of the Pleney side of Morzine. Also mentioned was a proposed to 6 seater chair lift to replace the acient Chamossiere chairlift. Work is due to start on this next year to be completed for next winter.

There is lots more information in the newsletter and it is produced in English and French. Click below for links:

Morzine Bulletins Municipaux in French

Morzine Council News in English

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Posted by Gareth

First Snow of the season

November 11, 2009

1. From the Avoriaz webcam on 11.11.09

2. A little video from 10.11.09
http://vimeo.com/7560532

3. This snowy picture was taken at 1800m above Morzine at 11am on Friday November 6th.

Carl at the Joux Plan

It’s always reassuring when the first (proper) snows arrive, especially after such a long hot summer. The forecast is predicting over 1m of snow will fall this week high on the mountan. It’s already looking fairly white up high. If you get a warm feeling inside when at the sight of snow then let me draw your attention to the following links.

1. A high resolution Webcam at Avoriaz

http://livecam.avoriaz.com/

2. The snow forecast for Chamonix

http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Chamonix/6day/mid

3. This one is for real fanatics, the real-time radar for the Northern Alps and Switzerland.

http://www.landi.ch/deu/0804_niederschlagsradar.asp

4. A very usefull English translation of the offical avalanche forecast, gives the finer detail of the snow conditions

http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Avalanches/Haute-Savoie-Avalanche-Bulletin

5. An the most important the weather forecast for Chamonix that can be roughly extrapolated around the region.

http://chamonix-meteo.com/bul/metPreMatEn.php

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Posted by Gareth

Tour de France Caravan in numbers

July 22, 2009

Only relevant in so far as we have quite a lot of property and land currently for sale on the side of today’s stage.

Chalet d’en Bas, Araches

Chalet Ballancy, Araches

Land Les Faux, Chinaillon

Apartment Le Rosay, Chinaillon

Plus others in Megeve!

I went along with my 7 year old (Jacques). I’m an avid follower of Le Tour. It’s nothing to do with trying to assimilate with the French culture, I’ve been following it since I started road racing as an 13 year old! As far as the 7 year old is concerned following the tour doeschatillon mean I can help him assimilate! We weren’t too ambitious, I wasn’t keen on spending the whole day stood by the road. The most important thing was to see the Publicity Caravan, the actual race itself is better watched on television. So here is a picture of our fairly nondescript corner (don’t mention this to the residents of the Col du Chatillon) of the race. It’s a Wednesday, we are 50 km from the finish, on a descent, so not a great place to be (the racers are travelling far too fast) and the weather is “showery”. And the place is mobbed. We arrived at 1345 hrs, the Police closed the road at 1355, the Caravan came past between 1415 and 1500 and the racers past at 1550 hrs. We were in a bar to watch the last (and crucial) 30 minutes of the race by 1615. We did well for promotional material, with the help of some friends our final tally was:

  1. 3 Polkadot sun hats (I have 3 children, so 3 were essential)
  2. A packet of crisps
  3. A bottle opener
  4. A neck warmer
  5. A newspaper
  6. A bracelet
  7. A bag full of Tour de France merchandise (we paid for this).
  8. A Le Tour Disney magazine.

In this magazine I found so interesting statistics about the Caravan.

The Caravan is 15km long, it has 160 “floats”, takes 40 minutes to pass by, passes about 10 million spectators, involves 600 people, it’s average speed it 40 km/hr, it sets off 1hr 45min in front of the race, throughout the day the race catches the Caravan so by the end of the race it is only 1hr ahead. The drivers drive on average 200km a day for a week over some of Frances most spectacular roads, the people that throw the merchandise at the crowds are specially trained to do so! The Caravan is 79 years old and over the 3 weeks it will distribute about 13 million bits of tat! So on that basis our 9 bits of tat was pretty good going!

Jacques took a little video, it captures perfcectly what you see when the racers come by!

Tour de France from Alpine Property on Vimeo.

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Posted by Gareth

French bank Holidays.

May 5, 2009

So for 2009 we have.

  1. Thursday 1 January – New Year’s Day (Jour de l’An).
  2. Sunday 12 April – Easter (Pâques).
  3. Monday 13 April – Easter Monday (Lundi de Pâques).
  4. Friday 1 May – Labour Day (Fête du Travail).
  5. Friday 8 May – VE Day – WWII Victory Day (Fête de la Victoire 1945).
  6. Thursday 21 May – Ascension Day (Ascension catholique).
  7. Sunday 31 May – Whit Sunday (Pentecôte).
  8. Monday 1 June – Whit Monday (Lundi de Pentecôte).
  9. Tuesday 14 July – Bastille Day (Fête nationale).
  10. Saturday 15 August – Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Assomption).
  11. Sunday 1 November – All Saints’ Day (Toussaint).
  12. Wednesday 11 November – Armistice Day (Armistice 1918).
  13. Friday 25 December – Christmas Day (Noël).

The observant will notice that May has 4 of them and on June 1st there is another, in 2010 all 5 fall in May,the only saving grace (for those who find bank holidays disrupt the working week) is the fact the French don’t move the bank holiday if it already falls on a holiday (like the British do). BUT then there is the habit of “faire le pont”, so for instance the holiday on May 21st falls on a Thursday, everyone will take a day of holiday on Friday too, thus making a really “long weekend”, so much so that they will refer to these really long weekends as “petit vacances”.

This means that working in May is almost as disrupted as working in August. When I first moved to France I was not aware of these customs and found life to be rather lonely in the mountain village I live in on these weekends. Now I leave for the coast with everyone else!

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Posted by Gareth

200 Properties for Sale

April 9, 2009

Alpine Property is approaching its 10th anniversary, but before we reach this milestone we have recently achieved another. This week is the first time we have had 200 properties available for sale on our website. In fact by Friday we’ll be on 205.

I know 200 doesn’t sound like a lot of properties for a web based agent. It is when you consider we operate like a traditional agent. We know each individual property and for each one we visit, take the photos and arrange a contract with the owner. We do not just “re-advertise” the properties for other agents.

It sounds like a lot to me. The reason for this is that Jo and I prepare the information and pictures and put each one on line. We have worked out how long (on average) each property takes to upload. Assuming we have to create a plan for the property (a lengthy task) then the whole process takes about 5 hrs.

So it made me wonder. How many properties have we put online in total? This is fairly hard to work out before 2002. And very easy to work out since 2002 (the year we went from a “static” HTML website to a “dynamic” database driven website). Since 2002 we have advertised 716 properties.

Thanks to Alexa’s “way back machine“, we can track how many properties where online on any given month since we went online. Here is the history for Alpine Property.

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.alpine-property.com

This is also an interesting place to browse if you want to see what a property might have been worth 10 years ago!

So here is the data for number of properties visible on the website (so it includes properties “under offer”).  I’ve also added initials by the year each team member joined.

Spring 2000 – www.alpine-property.com goes online with 15 properties SN/CB which overed St Jean d’Aulps, Morzine, Les Gets and the Chatel Valley – AKA The Portes du Soleil

Spring 2001 – 24 properties GJ/JN

Spring 2002 – 28 properties – website mk 2

Spring 2003 – 32 properties

Spring 2004 – 37 properties  JD helping GJ

Spring 2005 – 109 properties – website mk 3 DB/JC, adding Samoens, Chamonix, Megeve

Spring 2006 – 110 properties VM, helping DB

Spring 2007 – 112 properties LM, helping CB

Spring 2008 – 160 properties – website mk 3.5 EC/RO, adding Les Carroz, La Clusaz and Le Grand-Bornand

Spring 2009 – 220 properties

The initials stand for

  1. SN = Steve Norris
  2. CB = Claudia Buttet
  3. GJ = Gareth Jefferies
  4. JN = James Norris
  5. JD = Jo Davison
  6. DB = Denis Barbier
  7. JC = JC Skiera
  8. VL = Valérie Maes
  9. LM = Lee Massey
  10. EC = Emma Casanova
  11. RO = Richard Owens

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Posted by Gareth

Alpine Property Team Ski

January 31, 2009

The Alpine Property Team, from left to right.

Claudia, Lee, Jo, JC, Emma, Richard, Steve, Valerie, Alex, Gareth, Denis

This photo was taken on January 29th 2009 at the top lift at La Clusaz (Col de Barme 2477m). We try and get together every winter/summer as a team for a social ski or walk. This is the first time we have managed to get all 11 in one photo!

Further details of who we are and what we do:

Claudia Buttet, joint founder of Alpine Property, sales agent, Vallée d’Aulps including Les Gets and Chatel

Lee Massey, sales agent, Morzine

Jo Davison, first contact, it’s Jo you will probably “meet” first when you email Alpine Property.

JC Skiera, sales agent, Chamonix, Megeve and oversees the Aravis and La Clusaz.

Emma Casanova, sales agent in the Aravis, Emma also runs her own chalet management business.

Richard Owens, sales agent, Les Carroz/Flaine, Richard also runs his own chalet business.

Steve Norris, Managing Director and joint founder.

Valerié Maes, sales agent working with Denis in Samoens.

Alex Lewis, marketing man.

Gareth Jefferies, first contact, database admin, PR liaison.

Denis Barbier, sales agent and developer working from Samoens. A proper “local boy” and mountain professional.

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Posted by Gareth

Le Picaron Ski Race 2009

January 21, 2009

A Ski Mountaineering relay race in Morzine. Start at the Tourist Office, one of the team (of 2) runs up to the Pleney stad and “runs” up to the top of the visible section, then skis down through the gates, tags partner, repeat twice. We finished in 51min, the winners manages 32 min! Francesca Eyre and I came first (and last) in the mixed category and also the International Catagory. We won a bunch of prizes too. Well worth the effort.

These photos all taken by Sian Hughes. From L to R. A skinny Lycra clad chap (who eventually managed 36 min, the descent, Gareth waiting for Francesca.

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Posted by Gareth

November Powder / First Ski

November 23, 2008

Mt Chery had between 20 and 50cm of fresh powder after the last couple of day’s snowfalls. The snow had obviously come down on quite a wind because some aspects were completely scoured. Thanks to the snow fence and trees on the red piste on the north side of Mt Chery it was in great nick. From the carpark at 1433m to the summit at 1826m not a rock was touched!

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Posted by Gareth

Col de Coux

November 14, 2008

A little circuit that took in the Col de Coux above Morzine The temperature inversion was stuck at about 1800m which made for some atmospheric pictures.

This was a route researched by Steve Norris (MD of Alpine Property) linking the Col de Coux to the Chalets d’Auguille below the Pointe de Fornet.

A GPS download and stats for the trip available at mtbguru.com and pictures on Flickr.

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Posted by Gareth

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