Why would a vast, sun-drenched Alpine ski resort, blessed with an abundance of snow and slopes and bars and clubs, need a week-long dance music festival chucked in? It seems about as necessary as an extra Jagermeister in your vodka-Red Bull. But then, in both cases, that’s the way a lot of skiers and snowboarders like it.
Last March, I headed to France’s Alpe d’Huez, for the second Snowboxx festival (it was launched in Andorra in 2013), where dance music acts such as Horse Meat Disco and Eton Messy were on the bill.
The focal point of the festival was La Folie Douce, sister to one of the most legendary après bars in the Alps (there are now five in the Folie stable), superbly situated halfway up the main peak on the Marmottes plateau. Fun-seekers are funnelled off the slopes onto the bar’s south-facing terrace, where DJs and singers entertained every afternoon. In a setting where you’d expect Gore-Tex, La Folie’s dancers wore leather, angel wings and high heels. Well, the male ones did.
Plenty of visitors made an effort too: skiwear gave way to muppet outfits, pig costumes and retro onesies, while substantial German men in silver mini dresses enjoyed some full-blooded stamping of ski boots on the tables.
Anywhere else in the world this might be considered Eurotrash hell, yet here on the slopes the banging tunes in the full spring sun felt euphoric, something special. On one day, clouds crept up towards the peaks stopping just a few metres below the bar, leaving La Folie in the clear blue above, floating on cotton wool, the way heaven is supposed to look.
Even on the grey, cold day we arrived at the bottom of the main lift, hardy types were dancing in T-shirts – or less – to a set by One Love outside the Taburle bar as the snowflakes swirled around. I was freezing in my skiwear, clutching an overly cold pint.
Earlier in the week, when Belgian act 2manydjs were performing in the heart of the resort, the decking sank under the crowd’s weight, leading to a hasty change of venue to a car park across town. But festival headliners Jungle were a hit, even in a car park, and appeared on stage in fur coats and gloves.
Jungle’s frontman, his face just discernible inside a massive parka, told the audience: “We’re one of those bands that like to play gigs in weird places; we played a gig on the roof of Waterloo station but being in the fucking Alps has beaten all of them. Can’t feel my fucking fingers.”
I decided to switch to vin chaud, which made all the difference to my effing fingers. Later we wandered back into town where some of the bars were hosting Snowboxx events and others just regular après-ski, DJs and dancing.
The secret joy of going to a resort during a music festival, it turns out, is that should 4am finishes, dancing on tables and retro onesies lose their appeal, there is more than enough room to escape. In fact, canny serious skiers should think about actively choosing such weeks as the collective hangovers mean the pistes were empty at the start of clear, gorgeous mornings. Afternoons, too, saw a mini-exodus to La Folie, freeing up the pistes, although the final descent was perilous after chucking out time, as La Folie’s clientele descended in a drunken charge: magnificent fun, but it’s not skiing.
And there is such lovely skiing in Alpe d’Huez, and for all levels: bountiful green runs for beginners just above the village; lots of fun reds and blacks for intermediates, even if the melting spring snow limited the off-piste. One particularly beautiful run goes down to the village of Oz, the afternoon sunlight chasing skiers down a cleft in the mountains into the green valley below.
From the very top of the resort, the 3,330-metre Pic Blanc, starts the Saronne run, claimed by Alpe d’Huez to be the longest black in Europe at almost 16km. At the top, with the wind whipping round the peak, it was all deep blue sky and brilliant white crisp snow; we edged along a track above the precipice, then picked one of the broad, sweeping pistes to soar down. The melting spring snow made the middle section a slog through hundreds of metres of slushy moguls, where we counted down the piste markers, before hitting the last, almost horizontal section, where the late-season snow slowed us again.
Reaching a bar at the end of this run, refuelling with a hot chocolate loaded with cream, it was difficult to square this scenery – a wooded ravine, trees hugging bare rock, with snow only on the piste – with the peak above where we had been minutes before.
But it was another reason to rejoin the party and carry on celebrating.
• This season’s Snowboxx event will take place in Avoriaz, Portes du Soleil, from 12-19 Marchincluding transfers, standard apartments, lift pass and festival wristband from £335pp with flights from the UK, or £239 without). The trip was provided by Inghams which offers a choice of 11 properties in the resort of Alpe d’Huez, including Chalet Hotel Les Cimes. A week’s stay at a chalet, half-board, costs from £619pp, including return flights from Gatwick to Chambery and transfers. A six day-lift pass for Alpe d’Huez costs from £195 per adult, and equipment hire from £97 per adult, both when pre-booked through Inghams
More ski festivals
Polaris brings electronic music (Laurent Garnier, Seth Troxler, Carl Craig) to Verbier on 11-12 December. Day ticket CHF69 (about £47), polarisfestival.ch
Catch the So Solid Crew, plus Amy Becker and Skream at Rise Festival (pictured below) in Les Deux Alpes, 12-19 December. Speed dating on the lift a bonus. £189pp for festival and six-day lift pass, risefestival.co.uk
Horizon brings banging tunes to Bansko, Bulgaria, with Goldie, flashmob ski downs, £1.50 pints and a rave in an abandoned hotel. Six nights’ accommodation plus festival ticket from £175pp, 12-17 March, horizonfestival.net
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