Les Carroz

Le stockage technique ou l'accès est strictement nécessaire dans le but légitime de permettre l'utilisation d'un service spécifique explicitement demandé par l'abonné ou l'utilisateur, ou dans le seul but d'effectuer la transmission d'une communication sur un réseau de communications électroniques. Le stockage ou l'accès technique utilisé exclusivement à des fins statistiques. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you. Le stockage ou l'accès technique est nécessaire pour créer des profils d'utilisateurs afin d'envoyer de la publicité, ou pour suivre l'utilisateur sur un site web ou sur plusieurs sites web à des fins de marketing similaires. “Once upon a time, there was a high country covered in forests… If the history of these lands between the Arve and Giffre Valleys is ever written, it will have to start there!” André Louis Trabut There were 367 inhabitants at the beginning of this new era for the resort… Their life’s vocation has evolved with the passing of time… From farmers and watchmakers, they have become ski instructors, ski patrollers and rescuers, ski lift employees, shopkeepers, etc. In 1936, the first paid holidays were introduced, kick-starting a boom in tourist migration. But Les Carroz wasn’t built in a day! Tracing back these years of great change – sometimes rapid, sometimes slow – are still defining moments spanning the years and the people. To understand the pioneering nature of this construction, we need to look at the context. In the mid-1930s, skiing had not yet become a popular leisure sport. Even if some rural and mountain folk practised it, having learnt it while in the uniform of the Alpine regiments. The first “ski lift” was designed by Charles Pons and Léon Carpano. They were clock and watch manufacturers. Work began on creating the first ski lift in 1936. A concrete seat buried in the ground was found, marked with the same date. It was brought into service at Christmas 1938 and inaugurated with a blessing in January 1939. The resort had the longest ski lift ever built (1,600m for a vertical drop of 560m), and the publicity at the time was full of praise for it. This equipment could carry 180 people an hour, and it took fourteen minutes to climb from Les Moulins to the top of Kédeuze via a wide corridor in the middle of the forest, sheltered from the wind. Fernand Passy at the cash desk and Prosper Renaud as the boom operator were the first employees of “the” ski lift, which was transformed into a cable car in 1954 and is still known as the “Kédeuze”. The first ski pass was sold in 1938! The “ski tow” allows skiers to discover the joys of skiing on three slopes: the “Frison Roche” red run: a 4.5km sloped run for intermediate skiers; it joined the current Zorta and then the Combe until its destination. the blue “Timalets” run: this followed the route of the current Timalets run down to Les Servages. This run, for highly trained skiers, would become the Olympic run once further work enabled it to be widened by 10m along its entire length. Today, this slope is the resort’s iconic red run that takes you back down to the village on skis, the only slope you can see from the valley! the yellow “Mouillets” run: this 6 km-long beginner’s run is approximately the same length as the current Sarbotte run. The Kédeuze ski lift is undoubtedly the defining symbol of the birth of the resort! The war of 1939-40, with first the Italian occupation, then the German… The post-war period, when people were more concerned with putting food on their plates than going on holiday, was a protracted interlude to the development of tourism in Les Carroz. It would be more than seven years before a second ski lift saw the light of day: the “Figar