Industry News
Val d’Isere in France, which is interconnected and on one ski pass with neighboring Tignes, is getting a new gondola for the 24/25 season. The new 10-person Vallon gondola at the Col de L’Iseran will replace the old Vallon gondola built in 1982.
Val d’Isère and Tignes create one of the largest interconnected ski areas in the world. The area is often called Espace Killy, after French ski racer Jean-Claude Killy. The ski area jointly boasts 160 runs stretching across 300km (187.5 miles).
The new Vallon gondola is located in the heart of the unspoiled sector of Le Fornet, at the gateway to the Vanoise National Park. The state-of-the-art gondola project focuses on environmentally friendly infrastructure redevelopment while improving comfort and convenience for resort guests. The new gondola will not only replace the old 6-person gondola but will also replace two j-bars that are both more than 50 years old. This will enable the mountain operations to remove 30 pylons on the mountain, and protected flowers will be planted in the redevelopment zone.
The new Vallon gondola will cover the same vertical from 2,330 meters (7,644 feet) at the base station to 2,790 meters (9,154 feet) at the top station but will travel at a 50% faster speed, cutting the journey from approximately 13 minutes to 8:20 minutes. Together with the boost in gondola size from six to ten seats, this more than doubles the Vallon gondola’s hourly capacity to 3,000 people per hour.
Building work will commence in the summer of this year, and the gondola project is anticipated to be finished in time for the start of the 24/25 season in November 2024. The interior of the top station will be remodelled in the summer of 2025.
