I parked on the far side of Val d’Isère, France, yesterday with a simple plan: explore the entire resort, find some neat lines, and have my mind blown.

All three goals were accomplished.

This place is nuts.

Massive lines everywhere. Lifts zipping up the mountain left and right. More terrain than you can shake a stick at.

Runs so long my ears kept popping…

I wanted to ski the resort from wall to wall, but I balked at heading all the way up to the high glacier terrain on Montet in the far northeast. The morning was cloudy and cold, and I wanted to stay lower.

Still, I saw a hell of a lot of the place. I even rode the funicular straight through the mountain. Unreal.

After exploring for a couple of hours, I struck gold at 12:29 p.m. and started lapping.

What made these lines so fun is that they sit directly across the valley from each other. In one video, I’m skiing a line that becomes the background in the next video, and vice versa. Kind of cool, and not something I’ve ever done before.

Best of all, these slopes ski just like the “Lowers” on big Alaska faces. Same wind-lip spines. Same playful rollovers.

Same sun-kissed hot pow that makes you feel like a genius, even if you’re not.

The Lowers are often the best part of the run, and yesterday felt straight out of AK in that way.

I did five laps in this massive halfpipe of terrain right up until 3:30 p.m.

If I’ve learned one thing at these European mega resorts, it’s that you’d better start heading home around 3:30 p.m. It can easily take over an hour to get back to where you started.

I worked my way back to the car at Le Laisinant (I rented a Toyota Yaris AWD, and it’s been great).

From there, I flowed slowly back down the valley, all the way to Vilette near Les Arcs, where I planned to ski the next day with local legend Pierre.

Merci, la France.