Event Previews & Reviews from Les 2 Alpes

There are many trail races in the Deux Alpes area, but the Vertical Trail weekend is reserved for two of the steepest, most gruelling hill-climbs on the calendar.

Craig David is undoubtedly the best-known singer Les Deux Alpes has seen perform but the festival saw plenty more great music. This was also the snowiest Rise Festival so far, keeping the skiers and snowboarders happy and helping along the party atmosphere.

For the nineteenth edition the competitors were greeted by three days of good weather and perfect biking conditions. The fastest riders hit speeds well over 100km/h and covered the twenty-five-kilometre-long course in just under thirty minutes.

On Wednesday, Les Deux Alpes attempted to beat the world record for the largest ever torchlit descent on skis. Thousands of torches were ready, the people from Guinness were there to officiate and count, and a large crowd was gathered on La Toura ready for the ski down in the dark.

The glacier in Les 2 Alpes opened this weekend and in the region of 3,000 people arrived in resort to get their first skiing and snowboarding of the season done.

The fifth leg of the iXS European Downhill Cup (EDC), held in Les Deux Alpes this weekend, was the last event before the finals at Leogang (AUT) in September.

Back for the seventh year running, Les Deux Alpes’ Night Snow Trail continues to attract a growing number of trail runners each winter. In 2018, over 500 runners took part in the three courses.

This weekend just gone saw the fifth edition of the Deux Alpes Night Snowtrail race. As always it was a well-attended, well-run event, but this year saw the 2015 Trail Running world champion in attendance. Sylvain Court, who is also a two-time French champion, was running in the 20km race.