Conditions Report
Report from Saturday, February 28, 2026
Balme—Candide Thovex’s Playground.
A mythical location on the far skier’s right side of La Clusaz Resort.
Where the wave of freeskiing creativity crested and broke before it slowly rolled back…
You can still see the high-mark that the water left behind at the French ski area in Candide Thovex’s famous films:
Jumps and hits galore over a rolling and playful moonscape.
Green valleys below with cows grazing in overgrown grass alongside moldy barns.
Steep t-bars that you have to make sure your boots are buckled for.
All of which inspired the legendary local from Annecy that has since become one of the most famous skiers on Planet Earth.
His movies inspired me deeply as a child.
Now I got to see the very terrain where they were made and how they crafted such a skilled freestyle operator.
It all makes sense.
The village of La Clusaz has an old world core with a texture of the modern ski industry on the surface.
I saw Candide’s store and walked in to have a look.
Skis and memorabilia from the resort hung on the walls of the minimalistic interior.
He is certainly a man of a few words.
My crew and I got to Balme around 11, took the gondola up, and went all the way to the top where we went to gawk at all the jumps and hits that made this part of the resort famous from the films I watched growing up.
We stared in the now designated “Candide Thovex” part of the resort.
The snow was hard so we didn’t hit many jumps but just seeing them was an experience in itself.
Some of them would launch you so far in the sky that you’d likely touch down in another country when you finally landed.
After that we made the most of the pretty, sunny, chilly day and went on a safari around the resort, skiing all the way from the Balme side to the Massif di Manigod where we stopped for lunch at the Happy Chalet.
It lived up to its name, with joyful views of 2,409-meter Mont Charvin the distance.
The peak was filled with menacing ramps that we mindsurfed as a team while eating burgers and French fries (think you just call them fries here?) and hot dogs.
Then we cruised back to Massif de l’Aiguille where we enjoyed slushy turns in natural halfpipes and snaking terrain at the lower elevation of the mountain.
We even found a disco train that played hits from the past as it shuffled you from one side of the resort to the other, followed by an egg-shaped chairlift with ski holders on the side and views from the top that were just plain romantic.
The French know how to do skiing.
Go figure.
The whole day we didn’t wait in a liftline or deal with a crowd; even on Saturday, during what is supposedly to be busiest time of the season here.
Clouds circled and chased the top of the mountain throughout the day in an elaborate dance, sometimes twirling us in rays of sunshine and other tips dipping us in clouds of warm delighting fog.
It was a mellow day spent exploring a gorgeous ski area that was ultimately much bigger than it seemed.
A slushy forest lap to the car capped the day off perfectly like a cold spritz on a hot summer’s day.
After studying the cliffs and the chutes and the rocky ramps and the hits and side hits and under and over hits that riddled this mountain like chicken pox, I can now understand why one of the greatest skiers ever lived continues to call this humble mountain home.
I left feeling as inspired as I had when I first watched Candide’s films as an awry youth.
It was just one of those days.Â
PhotosÂ
The French Alps make my hometown Rockies look like the Poconos.