Anyone who has spent time in the French Alps will have heard of Beaufort. This sleepy town in Haute-Savoie is famed for its eponymous cheese, a fruity (and pricey) twist on gruyère that features heavily on the menu of every mountain restaurant from Morzine to Méribel. Since the middle ages, local farmers have grazed tarine cows on the valley’s high summer pastures, and then churned their milk into giant 45kg rounds that are matured for over six months as part of a carefully guarded, legally protected, tradition.
But while almost every skier has tucked into a fragrant fondue or a pungent savoyarde pizza, the source of all that stink remains an overlooked left turn to the majority of winter holidaymakers, who beat a well-worn path to the super resorts of the Three Valleys or Espace Killy. I’ve come to see what we’ve all been missing.
At first glance, it’s understandable that tourists head elsewhere: there are few restaurants and shops here, and little in the way of après action. We arrive on the quiet high street as most of the locals appear to be having a siesta, or lunch at traditional bistro Le Bouchon Gourmand.
Beaufort is clearly more working town than glamorous ski resort, yet it boasts a serious trump card in the form of easy access to no fewer than three separate ski areas: Arêches-Beaufort, Les Contamines and Les Saisies. And while gentle slopes and some heavy investment are fast turning Les Saisies into a popular family resort, Arêches and Les Contamines are mountains for whom the term “hidden gem” could have been coined.
Budget skiers could stay at L’Hôtel du Grand-Mont (doubles from €70 room-only, hotelbeaufort.com) in town, which has a couple of bars nearby, or at one of the good-value hotels near the Arèches lifts. Le Christiania (hotel-areches.com) has small, pine-panelled bedrooms, also from €70, and a great restaurant.
When I arrive, in mid-January, the Alps have been blessed with a dusting of new snow; a stone’s throw away in Chamonix, I can almost hear the rumble of ski boots as powder hunters spring from their bunks and rush out for the chance to make fresh tracks. Here, we drive 16km to Les Contamines lift station mid-morning and find an empty car park and no queue at the ticket booths. Presumably it gets busier in the school holidays but, on the chairlift, I can’t help wondering how such an operation makes any money.
Our guide, Laurent proceeds to show us around the extensive terrain. The groomed runs are huge, empty motorways, like those photographs of the M1 in the 1960s. It is the ideal place for experienced skiers and snowboarders to move up through the gears without the dangers of threading through the crowd. Off-piste is similarly steep and open, and we pass the afternoon exploring some of the many undulating powder bowls that are easily accessible from the lift and yet remain gloriously untouched.
Next morning we drive just 5km to Arêches-Beaufort, stopping to pick up lift passes at a vending machine in town – with a group discount we enjoy a full day of snowboarding for €20 each.
It is great value for a mountain which is compact and brimming with potential. From the Col de la Forclaz at 1,527m, a variety of quiet red and blue runs spill down towards the treeline, where adventurous types can dive into the forest and lose themselves in bottomless turns. Not for nothing has this place picked up a reputation among winter sports professionals (athletes, filmmakers and photographers) as the ultimate secret spot; it is a reliable magnet for powder and a haven in stormy weather.
Indeed, throw in rapid transfers (1¾ hours to Geneva or Lyon; under an hour to Chambéry) and a visit to Beaufort makes you wonder why so many of us keep heading up the road to lift queues, overpriced beers and powder-day bun fights. It seems a curious accident of history that one farming village, Val d’Isère, became an Olympic host, while its neighbour, in a similarly majestic valley, keeps one foot in the cattle business. The locals wouldn’t have it any other way, of course – as their fierce, decade-long resistance to a proposed lift expansion that would link Les Contamines to upmarket Mègeve testifies.
The nimbys have a new sympathiser in my host, Chris Sturgess. For most of the year, Sturgess runs the Snowfit Revolutionz shop in Norwich, but he has been lucky enough to buy a small chalet here that he uses as an occasional bolthole-cum-test centre. On his balcony, we tuck into fresh baguettes with wedges of the cheese born on the stunning hillsides beyond. Tourist boards love to sell us the dream of a mountain escape – epic landscapes in which you will find inner and outer peace – yet all too often the reality is a crowded town whose charm has been swept away on an avalanche of over-development and souvenir tat. This place offers authenticity of the kind the mega resorts can only grasp at via old-timey postcards and antiques on the walls. It’s seductive.
“There’s only one problem,” says Chris. “The longer I spend here, the more I wonder why I bother to go home.”
• Easyjet flies from several British airports to Lyon and to Geneva. Ski Flights (ski-flights.com) has direct charter flights to Chambéry from Gatwick and Stansted
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