What's on in Les 2 Alpes winter 2018/19

After two weeks of warm-up events and opening parties, the winter season really gets going with Rise Festival. The first big event of the season is back for its fifth year with six days of snow, music adventure and parties. Last year’s event was the best yet, with Craig David headlining. This year, Annie Mac, Camelphat and David Rodigan have been confirmed for the main Alpine stage. There are still places available if you haven’t booked yet.

After Rise, we head straight into the Christmas and New Year holidays. The main square will be transformed into a festive wonderland with a Christmas tree forest, Christmas market and Santa’s chalet. There will be a full programme of family-oriented events, shows and parades, as well as numerous opportunities to meet Santa.

New Year will be celebrated in style by every venue in the town. The resort puts on a torchlit descent, fireworks and vats of hot wine around the main square. Bars will have live music and entertainment, and you can expect the restaurants to serve up multi-course extravaganzas in place of their usual menus. Do book ahead if you are heading out to eat or drink. This is the busiest night of the season for the resort’s nightlife and places will book up quickly.

Watch out for our in-depth article on the Christmas and New Year programme in Les Deux Alpes, which comes out at the start of December.

The trail and obstacle running weekend has become firmly established on the Les Deux Alpes calendar over the last few years. A growing number of-trail running skiers plan their annual ski holiday to coincide with these on-snow races. The event begins with the Night Snow Trail on the Saturday evening after the ski lifts close. A start on Les Cretes at 2200 metres and a finish in town give the courses the unusual feature of having more downhill than up. There are three courses to choose from, covering 10, 15 or 20 kilometres.

On Sunday, the running continues with the Mad Snow Race. The five-kilometre obstacle course makes a circuit of the resort around the lower pistes. It is open to teams of two who are ready run, jump, climb, slide and crawl to complete the modules along the way. Don’t forget to bring your passport when you register for either event, along with a medical certificate stating your fitness to race. This is a common requirement for any kind of competition in France.

This one is for those who prefer their skiing in the uphill direction. The ski touring challenge is back for the third year running. Starting by the bottom of the Jandri Express, competitors head up the Jandri 1, 2 and 3 runs to the 2600m mid-station, before heading off-piste to reach the glacier. The race kicks-off early so that the skiers can complete most of the on-piste section before the first downhill traffic. Skinning up empty pistes as the sun comes up is a great experience, and this is always a well-planned event. Medals are awarded according to how high people get, with gold going to anyone who gets right to the top of the glacier at 3600 metres.

The concept is simple – sprint to your skis or snowboard, click in, get to the bottom as fast as you can. Add in a mass start with over 300 people and you have the Red Bull Tout Schuss competition. After a successful race last year, the Tout Schuss tour is once more coming to Les Deux Alpes at the end of March. The race starts after the pistes have closed, for obvious safety reasons, and is free to enter for anybody with a valid lift pass, insurance and a helmet.

At the end of April each year, the Venosc lift and trail open to mountain bikers for a sneak preview of what the summer has to offer. The Venosc run is a red-graded downhill trail so it is not for beginners, but for experienced mountain bikers this is a great chance to get the first lift-served downhill biking of the year. The skiing is still open too, so you can combine both sports in one holiday. The Faster Than You weekend is organised by Andorran bike manufacturer Commencal. You can expect to see competitions and contests, timed runs, and the chance to try out Commencal bikes.

There are many other events over the course of the season. These include the British Independent School's Ski Championships, Belgian, German and Romanian music festivals, avalanche rescue dog training, the Easter children’s week, a kids’ ski and snowboard slalom competition, regular shows in the Amphibia theatre and a host of parties thrown by the bars and clubs in resort. Our monthly What’s On guides will give you all the detail of what is happening each month.