Serre Chevalier
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Serre Chevalier is one of the major French ski resorts. Located in the southern part of the Alps, close to the Parc National des Ecrins, in the Hautes-Alpes department of the French Alps, it enjoys a large skiing area (250 km of slopes) and very sunny weather, boasting 300 days of sunshine a year.
Serre Chevalier consists of the town of Briançon, with the villages of Chantemerle, Villeneuve, and Le Monêtier-les-Bains. The ski champion Luc Alphand was born and lives in the valley of the resort.
Ski Area
The lowest the skiing goes down to is at 1200m and the highest Telesiege Yret at 2760m. One of the outstanding features of Serre Chevalier is the wooded nature of the slopes. The Treeline stops at 2150m, that means there is about 700m of vertical treelined slopes. The slopes are managed by the CDA. There are 69 lifts : 39 drag lifts, 20 chairs (among which 6 six passengers chairs, 3 high speed quads), 4 cable cars and 6 gondolas.
Summer
In the summer Serre Chevalier becomes an area dedicated to kayaking, walking, cycling, mountain biking, climbing, rock climbing, sledding, paragliding and generally enjoying one of the most gorgeous mountain areas in Europe. Serre Chevalier organizes the MTB french championships in 2008. 4 lifts reopen for the summer months to take walkers and mountain bikers up the mountain.
Transport
The nearest airports to Serre Chevalier are Turin in Italy and Grenoble in France. These are served by some of the UK's budget airlines such as EasyJet and Ryanair, providing easy access from many European cities.
There is a SNCF railway station in Briancon. It has direct trains from Paris and overnight sleeper trains.
