Meet the Locals in Les Arcs

Based in Peisey-Vallandry, but operating in a number of different ski areas, they have mobile therapists available in all of the Les Arcs resort villages.

As they are both experts on skis and snowboard, I asked Rich and Anna for their “top tips” on skiing in Les Arcs, found out what it’s like to run a business in the French Alps and, at one stage, was briefly interrupted by a wandering brass band...

So, how and when did Massage Me start?

Anna: It started ten seasons ago. We came out here eleven years ago, worked for a chalet company for the first year and then, randomly, bought an apartment out here. Unfortunately seasonnaire wages don’t pay enough to cover a mortgage. I have a sports science background so thought “let’s do massage.” In the first year it was just me, working in Peisey and I was booked up completely. The next season another therapist joined me, and we ran with two of us for a year. Then, the year after that, we expanded to La Plagne and La Rosiere. Five months is quite a short time to make a living and you can only do so much with one pair of hands to make the most of it. A friend of mine actually said “well, if you’re going to take on one more therapist, why not go for six?”

Rich: It was taking the plunge to go from the “safety net” of Peisey-Vallandry and Les Arcs to more therapists, a much broader area and different resorts.

A: Once we did that, realised the model worked and built relationship with tour operators, they were saying “what about our chalets in this place, what about our chalets in that place? So it had a natural growth from demand. Now we have therapists massaging throughout the Tarentaise.

R: From Courchevel to Val d’Isere and everywhere in-between. Don’t forget the Portes de Soleil, the Grand Massif and Alpe d’Huez.

It gets better every year. But Les Arcs is our flagship. It’s where we started, where we live, and where we do a huge amount of massaging every season.

What are the best, and worst, things about your job?

The best thing is working for yourself. The bottom line is, if there’s a really good powder day, we can always make it. We can always go skiing. We may pay for it afterwards, but that’s our choice.

Quite a big negative for the business is our hourly rates, because we work a phenomenal amount of hours and put an awful lot of effort in. So, if you actually equated the time we work to an hourly rate, we wouldn’t make a lot, personally. For us, as a business here to support us to live our lives, so we can manage a team of therapists so they can enjoy it and earn enough money, it works. And it’s growing.

It’s more about being here, to be living in this environment. We came out here for the winters but we possibly enjoy the summers more now, and I never thought I’d say that. The walking, the mountain biking, I got into trail running this summer; it’s all there on your doorstep.

What’s your favourite thing about Les Arcs?

Peisey-Vallandry do have a brass band walking around, that’s quite nice.

That’s true, but other than today?

We’ve been skiing all over the world and Les Arcs has it all. There’s so much off-piste, like at the back of the Aiguille Rouge where you can find two vertical kilometres of descent, all off-piste and really accessible.

In Canada if you want to go backcountry, they rely a lot on skidoos or helicopters, but here you can take a lift, ride a huge, long line and end up at the bottom of another lift. It means you can do three big trails in a day on a standard lift pass, and you’re not paying thousands of dollars to be transported around the area. And if you don’t know where to go, you hire a guide.

So backcountry skiing is a passion then?

We’ve been here for eleven seasons now and we’re still not bored in the slightest. There’s still a lot of lines we want to tick off, but sometimes you have to wait for the right conditions. Last year we did a line called Papin which we’d been waiting for three years to do. Not because it wasn’t available for three years but, the days it was on, we weren’t available to go.

And there was a window where the snow was right, the weather was right, we weren’t working for two days and we said “right, we can go and ski that line.” We paid the nanny to do an extra couple of hours and had an epic day, just the two of us. A great day. Big tour, big line, big descent.... Well worth it.

Best ski run/sector in Les Arcs?

You could lap the Grizzly lift all day. That’s another reason to love Les Arcs, if you get bad visibility, you head to the trees. You’ve got great piste skiing in the trees and, if the snow’s good enough, you’ve got great tree skiing if you know where to jump off the trails. But, for me, it’s the Varet and the Aiguille Rouge (lifts) on a good snow day. The gradient’s perfect. We have had some skiing on the Varet where we’ve waited for 45 minutes for it to open and taken the first gondola up. When there has been 50cm of new snow you can get down so quickly and straight back onto the gondola (because by the time you get to there, the queue has gone because everyone else is IN the gondola). You then overtake all the intermediates fighting their way through the powder by keeping to the right and you get it again. You can do three laps.

And then you move onto the Lanchette chair... And then you move onto the back of the Lanchette chair, the off-piste stuff and, you know, cherry-pick your day. You’ve got to stay ahead of the game. That’s another thing about Les Arcs, compared to other ski areas, we have by far the best piste-bashers. You go to other places and there’s always, like, steps and ridges.

Sometimes that ridge can be a foot tall and if the snow’s a bit hard it can be like a kerb heading all the way down the piste. Whereas here, no matter what the snow conditions, whether powder or icy, the slopes are flat and linked up perfectly. When you’re on the Grizzly (lift) on a fresh morning and there’s powder in between the pistes but the pistes are just groomed to perfection, the sun’s out, Bellecote’s in the background, that’s just picture postcard. That’s “wet yourself” skiing.

Best bar?

Best bar/restaurant we’d go for La Vâche (in Plan Peisey) for its cosy atmosphere and good food. It’s slightly different with not just a Savoyarde style. But for the best night out it has to be the Mont Blanc (in Vallandry): they put on bands, comedy gigs, sports... I think the best pub in the area has got to be Mont Blanc.

Best place for lunch?

Best place on the mountain for a quick, cheap snack is the Bulle. At the bottom of the Arcabulle, the tent-like round structure. For me, on the mountain, that’s by far the best place to pop in because they do good pizzas, it’s cheap, quick, fun and social. They do oysters and stuff as well. You can stop, have a cheeky demi (beer) and a pizza right on the pistes by the major lifts.

I think we’ll finish by talking about the future. What’s coming up for you?

Well we have exciting plans to develop Massage Me again for next season, so there will be some changes and further expansion. There’s a lot of work to be done before we can talk about that though.

Also, Anna’s pregnant with our second child, so that’s probably the biggest thing that’s going to happen in the next few months.