"And what type of ski would you like?" asks Cedric, deftly sliding open a rack of brightly coloured Black Crows for me to peruse. This advanced skiers' kit wasn't the sight or decision I'd imagined facing at a rental shop in La Plagne.
My first visit to this now-vast ski area was with my family, decades ago. Back then, on what was only my third time on skis, it was not yet linked with Les Arcs to form the Paradiski area. Our holiday was of the type that's now bread and butter to La Plagne; learning my turns on the beginner and intermediate pistes that form more than 80% of the ski area's 265-mile range.
That experience had coloured my perception of this high, purpose-built resort with its brutalist architecture spread across 11 satellite hamlets, such as Belle Plagne and Plagne Bellecôte. Much of it is ski in, ski out, which has cemented La Plagne's place firmly in the British family ski holiday pantheon, since back in the 1980s. This is a resort -- I had always believed -- that's about piste skiing for non-adventurous types who just want to tootle around and don't much care about the charm of being in the mountains.
Spoiler alert: I was wrong. Cedric's quiver of Black Crows skis -- from race carvers to wide weapons for tackling powder and touring set ups -- signifies just how wrong. Bemused that there is even a market in La Plagne for this level of rental kit, I select some fluorescent orange freeride Mirus Cor skis, with a funky full square rocker tip and forked tail, before heading out to join Thierry Delecluse, my guide from ESF (École du Ski Français) who speeds off to show me the area's advanced terrain.
After a stellar start to the season, the snow had then been scarce during January, but sometimes the snow gods do bless us. And that morning, I had opened my curtains to sunshine and a fresh sprinkling of powder, which brought a steady stream of skiers in cars from the valley floor.
We jump quickly onto the Grande Rochette gondola, bound for a hidden patch of powder. Thierry knows this valley like the back of his hand, and we dip in and out of hidden features between the pistes -- small gulleys and couloirs, all of them fun, short pitches to enjoy the fresh snow.
The ski area is undeniably busy. "Everyone needs to come high for the snow nowadays," says Thierry, ruefully. "The seasons are changing." The behemoth that is Paradiski has a vast network of efficient, high-speed lifts that copes well with the sheer volume of people up at the top. Due to its altitude, the resort has spectacular views across the Tarentaise Valley to Mont Blanc, and thanks to the repositioning of Les Glaciers gondola last winter, views are even better, with the ski area extending up to heights of 10,100ft. The gondola now arrives on the ridge of the Bellecôte, a mountain with an almost mythical status among freeriders, where various gnarly routes down its north face -- previously off limits to anyone without a ski touring set‑up -- are now lift-accessed.
The advent of ski touring, though, is here to stay, explains Thierry. "In the last 10 years or so, more and more people have wanted to try it -- but when people aren't used to ski touring, we need to manage their energy carefully and propose a one-hour climb and full downhill to maximise the conditions."
In the evening, after all the talk of climbing, I swap my freeride skis for a touring set, Cedric at Intersport pulling out the Black Crows Camox for me to try and some new grippy skins to slide onto them. And the next morning, Thierry and I set off from the top of Roche de Mio into the wilds of Combe de La Vélière, a wide-open valley run three miles long, eerily silent away from the clang of lifts behind us. A huge rise in temperatures during descent means stripping layers of clothing as we go, funnelling from the open bowl onto a narrow track where we stop to watch ibex on the cliffs above. Then we pick our way over tumbling streams of snowmelt on a zigzag path down to the tiny village of Champagny-le-Haut.
A world away from the incessant buzz in Paradiski, this wood and stone Savoyard village has the feel of a place where time has stood still -- so quiet you can hear a pin drop. The traditional mountain hut Refuge du Bois rewards us thirsty adventurers with a welcoming beer while we wait for a taxi back to nearby Champagny-en-Vanoise, for a sunny lunch on the terrace at Ristorante Alpina, before riding the gondola back home.
Day three dawns bright and sunny for the much-anticipated ski-touring adventure on the three-mile-wide north face of the Bellecôte. Patchy snow conditions mean that rather than access the area from the more usual Couloir de Pépin, we enter the face just beneath the landing point of Les Glaciers (the new lift is shut during my visit, so for the purposes of research, we ski tour up instead). It's worth the climb. As we descend this mighty run, tussling with a mix of crust and powder created by the warm temperatures of the previous day, I spy huge wolf prints in the snow as we enter the treeline. So much for La Plagne being a built-up resort: this is truly one of the last remaining wild sections of the Paradiski area.
The re-entry, riding the double-decker Vanoise Express lift from Peisey Vallandry to La Plagne, is a jolt back to reality and definitely not for those with no stomach for heights.
But there is one last myth La Plagne has been waiting to bust: inconvenience. I'd always remembered this resort as an outlier, somewhere that was a schlepp back to the airport. But on my final afternoon, I ski until 4pm, swing by Cedric to return my rental skis, and pile into a waiting minibus transfer that deposits me at Geneva airport two hours later for a civilised early evening flight home. La Plagne, it turns out, is big on ski area, altitude -- and surprises.