Downhill tracks.
The cachette track in Arc 1600 is one of the sickest in the Alps. Around six minutes flat out with a vertical drop of 550 metres and a course length of over 3km it has played host to a round of the Avalanche Cup for the last three years. Tables, hips, fades, berms (braking bump free!) technical sections and scarily fast straights all feature. If this gets a bit too much for you take the Trans Arc cable car to Arc 2000 for the Plagnettes course. This is a very smooth track with some nice flowing sections and smaller jumps. An excellent course for hardtails. New tracks are added every year.
Singletrack
The single-track is all over the place, whether it be through the forests or out in the open through steep alpine meadows. One of the best known tracks in the area runs from Arc 1600 back down to Bourg. With a vertical drop of 800 metres through a steep forest, this winding track takes 20 minutes flat out. And the lift back up? Takes just eight minutes and it runs until seven thirty at night! Between Peisey and Arc 1600 there are 12 separate single-track routes running through the forest down to the valley, and that’s just what's available below 1600m!
Technical riding
This is something that Les Arcs does best. Every lift has at least one technical route running down from it. Higher up on the mountain this involves steep switchbacks over some very loose rocky terrain. Lower down in the forests things get a bit more north shore with the kind of trails where you are constantly on the brakes. This can make for descents lasting up to an hour through technical terrain at very slow speeds.
Epic descents
The altitude available in Les Arcs offers many truly epic descents. How does a ninety minute downhill grab you? Eighteen hundred vertical metres of descent with a mixture of flowing single-track, fire road and technical single-track. And there are three or four completely different routes like this each using different sides of the mountain.
More?
Bourg has it’s own skatepark and the surrounding forests are littered with dirt jumps. There’s even a lake jump! Click here for further details. |
Les Arcs consists of five separate resorts. Arc 1600, 1800 and Paisley Vallandry all sit on the west side of a long ridgeline. To the east of this is another valley where Arc 1950 and 2000 are located and beyond that, the highest point - the Aiguille Rouge (3226m). 
