Alpe d'Huez is a city the in French Alps. Besides being a winter ski resort, Alpe d'Huez is a popular resort for cycling fans as in many years one of the most important stages of the Tour de France ends at the ski station.
The road the cyclists take is approximately 9 miles (or 13 km) long and consists of 21 hairpin turns. The road is packed with cycling fans, as many as 500,000 of them every time the Tour de France passes through.
For fans of cycling history, a unique feature of Alpe d'Huez is that each of the 21 hairpin turns is numbered from 21 (at the bottom) to 1 (at the top). Each of these numbered signs also has listed the names of one or two of the winners of the stage to Alpe d'Huez and the year they won the stage.
- Tourism Office, Place Paganon Maison de l'Alpe, +33 4 76 11 44 44.
Tourism Office, Place Paganon Maison de l'Alpe, +33 4 76 11 44 44.
Alpe d'Huez is one of Europe's premier skiing venues, having gained popularity when it hosted the bobsled events of the 1968 Winter Olympics.
With 249 km of piste and 84 ski lifts, the resort is now one of the world's largest. Extensive snowmaking facilities helped combat the ski area's largely south-facing orientation and helped Alpe d'Huez appeal to beginner skiers, with very easy slopes. There are also good intermediate-grade slopes, but the resort is mostly known for freeskiing.
Aside from the Tunnel and Sarenne black runs, the latter the world's longest at 16 km, many off-piste opportunities exist both from the summit of the 3330 m Pic Blanc and the 2808 m Dome des Petites Rousses. These include the 50-degree Cheminees du Mascle couloirs, the open powder field of Le Grand Sablat, the Couloir Fleur and the Perrins bowl. Up to 2200 m of vertical descent are available with heli drops back to the resort's altiport. The proximity to the exclusively off-piste resort of La Grave as well as tree skiing at Serre Chevalier and the glacier and terrain parks of Les Deux Alpes have made Alpe d'Huez a popular base for skiers looking to explore the Oisans region.