The rise and fall (and rise?) of the people’s ski resort

In recent years, unseasonably mild weather has become the new normal. And like the denuded lowest slopes, unattractive without the vegetation to cover over man-made destruction in the name of adrenalin-fuelled fun, the resort itself has also been peeled away.

I’ve been going to Le Balcon on and off for about 15 years. It was the place that my French wife’s family went to when they first tried skiing at some point in the late 1970s, and it has since become cemented in tradition. There is never really any discussion about trying somewhere else. If we are going to meet up in February, it’s going to be there – snow or no snow. 

Apart from anything else, Le Balcon is a damned sight cheaper than the fancy resorts at higher altitudes which most Brits frequent, and as a result, has always retained an unprepossessing charm all of its own. For us, it has been absolutely ideal; great skiing once you get up top by taking the cable cars, and so comfortably familiar that we feel like regulars surrounded by many of the same people we see every time we go.

The same ageing instructors with their weathered faces, the smiling proprietor at the ski-hire shop, and the couple who own the boulangerie from which my wife buys the baguettes every morning for our lunchtime sandwiches to be eaten somewhere up a mountain. Always reliably present.

Built in the early part of the 1970s as a way of enabling more French people to enjoy winter sports, Le Balcon was designed as a completely self-contained resort that would cater to its visitors’ every need. As well as the boulangerie, there was a small supermarket, a smattering of bars and restaurants, a disco and a cinema. Events took place every evening. There was even a huge open-air swimming pool, which was later demolished and filled in. 

At the time, it was a relatively untested concept – like a summer holiday resort by the beach, but high up in the mountains. Crucially, the high-rise blocks that obscure the verdant scenery behind – the very definition of a blot on the landscape – enabled the masses to come from the cities, people for whom chalets in higher-up resorts like Méribel and Courchevel would probably not have been affordable.

It was a noble intention, very much in keeping with French state largesse, and something to be cherished. Every year the resort is still frequented by large colonie de vacances groups made up of orange bib-wearing teenagers from deprived estates on the edge of Paris and Lyon. A wonderfully French institution – state-funded ski holidays for kids whose parents can’t afford it. Imagine that in the parsimonious UK.

Jacques Chirac visited the resort in 1982 when artificial snow cannons were installed on some of the lower pistes. A black and white photograph of the former president taken during his official tour still takes pride of place in a tunnel below the cable car waiting area.

The artificial snow system was extended in the early 1990s following several failed ski seasons; a harbinger of things to come perhaps, but one it was easier to ignore. Le Balcon thrived as France’s economy prospered and became a firm favourite for many families like my wife’s. New developments came with each successive year.

These days, however, Le Balcon feels like a relic of a bygone era; its glory days rusted and chipped like the staircase railings in the tower block in which we spend the week. The cosy and compact flat we stay in on the 11th floor of one of the conjoined tenement blocks has wallpaper straight out of a 1970s sitcom. The lift splutters its way up, no doubt unchanged since it was first installed.

Corridors linking different parts of the labyrinthine tourist accommodation complex are spooky and confusing because of a bizarre numbering system and the fact that the building is constructed on a steep incline. Around the back are spaces reserved for the proprietors of these flats, each with their individually made signs, most of which have always been there.

The disco and the cinema are long boarded-up, as are other abandoned parts of the complex. They’ve sealed off the subterranean cellar in which the wheelie bins used to be kept. This year, even the salle des fetes, in which residents once watched Montillet’s Salt Lake City triumph on TV, was locked shut for the whole week. Previously, it was always opened up for the social highlight of our week in the French Alps – bingo night. 

Last year’s event, truth be told, did feel like it might have been the swansong. I was there with my wife and youngest son; competing against us were only a clutch of other families. Most of the plastic seats were empty.

We walked away with so many prizes – all donated by local shopkeepers from the larger main town of Villard-de-Lans a few miles further down the valley – that we could hardly carry all of our loot back to the flat. 

What has happened to Le Balcon? Part of the decline is due to lack of snow at lower altitude, but there is also that French families now have less disposable income, so while they still spend on skiing they opt out of the apres-ski fun. There is now the ability to drive to the supermarket in the nearest town to eat in the apartment rather than being dependent on what the resort offers, while the shortened season (because of climate change) means the proprietors simply don’t earn enough to keep places like cinemas and nightclubs open

Still, despite the absence of bingo, we once again enjoyed an amazing week on our visit in February. Except for the last windy day, the conditions were absolutely perfect. As before, après-ski consisted only of a single pint at one of the bars after our descent rather than the kind of late-night marathon drinking sessions that are a big part of so many British ski trips. And I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

By 9pm, after taking my son sledging in the presumably fake snow at the base of the slopes, there was barely anyone still around. Peeking through the window of one bar I could see the staff eating their evening meal together because there were no longer any customers to attend to.

The only exception to this welcome somnolence was on the penultimate evening, Thursday, when young kids who had received skiing lessons took part in the descente aux flambeaux (the flaming descent). In earlier, less risk-averse times, this entailed children skiing down the final bit of the Montillet piste to their waiting parents in a long, snaking formation holding actual flaming torches. These days, they brandish fluorescent plastic tubes and, of course, have to use the other slope.

Afterwards, the ski school instructors indulge the crowd with stunts and displays of skiing finesse under floodlights. Every year, the ceremony is identical. The announcer cajoles the assembled mums and dads with the same words, two instructors come down in costumes from a popular French comedy film (the humour goes over my head), the head of the local blue cheese association gives a speech, and then the night is capped off by fireworks.

I can predict every second of the choreography, but I love it; like everything about Balcon de Villard, the descente aux flambeaux is reassuringly unaffected by the march of time.

Radical change is on the horizon though. A consortium headed by former French-American basketball star Tony Parker has acquired a controlling majority stake in Villard-de-Lans Equipment Company and Corrençons-en-Vercors (SEVLC), which manages the lifts of the ski area. In 2019, the municipal council unanimously voted to change the majority shareholder of the SEVLC in favour of the Infinity Nine Mountain company, owned by the basketball player, and the deal comes into effect later this year.

Parker’s dream is that this will transform Le Balcon completely, into a “dynamic place, vibrant and busy all year long”. What this means in reality is unclear.

A few years ago, they put a zip-wire ride for kids next to where the skiers should have been coming to a parallel run stop at the end of the Montillet. Its managers might be able to expand if the slope becomes totally redundant, unless Parker has better plans.

For me, and many other Le Balcon loyalists, the ambition to improve a place that appeals because of its inoffensive decline feels like caving in to commerce over tradition. And even Eva Longoria’s ex can’t make the snow come back.

As I handed back my skis at the end of our holiday, the lovely proprietor told me the slopes need to remain open for another two months for it to be a profitable season. Looking at the weather forecast for the following week, she sighed accordingly.

Tom Parry is an international freelance journalist