{"id":3337,"date":"2026-05-03T11:06:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:06:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:06:38","slug":"le-grande-dernier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/uncategorized\/le-grande-dernier\/","title":{"rendered":"Le Grande Dernier"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.valthorens.com\/app\/uploads\/iris-images\/12766\/240313-ski-pistes-l.brochot-ot-val-thorens-22-879x615-f50_50.webp\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This weekend Val Thorens celebrates &#8220;Le Grand Dernier&#8221;, the resort&#8217;s last lift-served days of the 2025\/26 Alpine season. It has been quite a season, with some memorable and some sobering highlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 60th FIS Alpine World Cup season was defined by legendary comebacks and historic firsts: Mikaela Shiffrin secured her sixth Overall World Cup title, equalling the legendary Annemarie Moser-Pr\u00f6ll;  Lindsey Vonn claimed her 83rd career victory in the St. Moritz downhill at age 41; and Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, now representing Brazil, made history in Levi as the first skier to win an Alpine World Cup race for a South American nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Winter Olympics returned to the heart of the Italian Alps, and the home athletes certainly delivered. Federica Brignone won an emotional gold in the Super-G on home snow, completing a fairytale recovery from major leg fractures just a year prior. Meanwhile Switzerland&#8217;s Franjo von Allmen became the breakout star of the Games, securing a golden treble in the speed events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whilst competitive winter sports were spectacular, the season was marred by a tragic surge in avalanche fatalities across Europe, largely triggered by a persistent weak layer of sugar snow formed early in December, which became buried under nearly 2.5 metres of heavy January snowfall. This created a ticking time bomb snowpack that caught even experienced off-piste skiers off guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The most notable trends in ski tourism include the increased interest in Norway, aided by a weaker Krone, the increasing attraction of relatively crowd-free Furano and Tomamu in Hokkaido and the increase in bookings for snow-sure resorts like Val Thorens and Obergurgl. Many lower resorts are surely going to suffer in future seasons unless they can broaden their winter appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conversely more snow-sure resorts continue to invest in infrastructure, with Les Deux Alpes, Courchevel and Ischgl all making significant investment in new lifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This weekend Val Thorens celebrates &#8220;Le Grand Dernier&#8221;, the resort&#8217;s last lift-served days of the 2025\/26 Alpine season. It has been quite a season, with some memorable and some sobering highlights. The 60th FIS Alpine World Cup season was defined by legendary comebacks and historic firsts: Mikaela Shiffrin secured her sixth Overall World Cup title, &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/uncategorized\/le-grande-dernier\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Le Grande Dernier&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,1],"tags":[183,99,306],"class_list":["post-3337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized","tag-alpine","tag-high","tag-val-thorens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3340,"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions\/3340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oatridge.co.uk\/nic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}