After years of speculation about when this project was going to take place, Alpe d’Huez has just announced it’s plans to invest 350 million euros upgrading the resort over the next 5 years. The flagship project will be to build a gondola link between Alpe d’Huez and Les 2 Alpes, creating one of the largest linked ski areas in the world.
Upgrades and expansions include:
1. Linking Alpe d’Huez & Les 2 Alpes
60 million euros will be spent on this exciting project to connect the 2 popular resorts by 2021. The cable car crossing across the valley will take 18 minutes. Starting at 2200m in the area Signal de l’Homme the cable car will cross the valley passing over Freney-d’Oisans to Mont-de-Lans in Les 2 Alpes.
With 250km of piste in Alpe d’Huez and 225km in Les 2 Alpes, linking the 2 domains will create a ski area totaling 475km! This will be larger than Espace Killy (Tignes and Val d’Isere) and Paradiski (Les Arcs and La Plagne).
It’s likely that the building work won’t start until 2019 for opening in 2021.
The latest plan of the link:
2. More Hotels
200 million euros will be spent on modernising and expanding hotels in Alpe d’Huez, creating 4600 new ‘high end’ beds, including 800 in 5 star hotels and over 3000 in 4 or 5 star apartments.
Four new neighborhoods will be built. Photo: immobilier.lefigaro.fr
3. Less Cars & Better Quality of Life
New underground parking will be created so there are less cars in resort. Roads will become pedestrianised and more trees will be planted.
4. Better Links Across the Mountain & Villages
30 million is to be invested in a new 2 km gondola link between the village of Huez and Alpe d’Huez ski resort.
100 million will be spend on modernising existing lifts to speed up transportation and increase capacity across the mountain.
Vaujany also has long term plans to connect to Les Sybelles region of Maurienne, which would create a linked ski area of over 800km!