Farewell to the Bons Chairlift

This summer the old Bons two-man chairlift is finally being removed, several seasons after it closed for the last time. Whilst taking out the lift is welcome and necessary, it is still sad to see it go.

The resort and lift company are making a big effort to remove old, non-working lift infrastructure at the moment, and it is good to see the clean-up in progress. Ski resorts inevitably have an impact on the local environment, but a responsible operator will at least try to minimise that impact and return lift routes to nature once they have been retired.

The Bons lift was old, slow and only served one piste – although it did have a mid-station splitting that piste into the upper blue and lower red. It is perhaps not surprising that it was underused in its later years and was eventually closed. For those of us that did use it though, its dismantling marks the end of an era. Many long term Deux Alpes skiers have fond memories of skiing the Bons trees and the Les Travers off-piste. This unfrequented little corner of the ski area had a unique charm that was a little different from what the rest of the resort has to offer. However, progress is progress, and amidst the big plans for the future (the link to Alpe d’Huez being the most exciting thing in the pipeline), quaint old two-man chairlifts tend to find their days are numbered.

The chairlift opened in 1971 with the idea that the village of Bons would become a satellite resort of the main Deux Alpes area. To this end, plans were in place to build three further lifts extending the Vallée Blanche sector to the north and west. The most notable was to be a chairlift or gondola linking the village of Les Travers to the summit of the current Vallée Blanche chair. The Bons chairlift was envisaged as being upgradeable to a high speed chairlift as this new expansion took place. Sadly, all these plans were quickly dropped as it became clear that the future of the Deux Alpes ski area lay in the Jandri sector which was also being developed at the time.

Although well known to the Deux Alpes connoisseur, the lift was never very popular. In December 2007 during a test period, strong winds caused an incident led to a pylon being damaged. Given the low level of usage, the high cost of repairs, and alterations needed to comply with new regulations, the decision was made to close the lift permanently.

-

Read more from Ian on his website.