Slalom

Hire only · no sales
Valley floor, 640 m
Two changeover days a year

A still alpine lake with a glacier and grey peaks behind it. A flat sea of white cloud seen from above with blue sky over it. The view over the bow of a wooden rowing boat towards a lake.

Skis until the end of March. Boats from the first Saturday in May.

A skier in a blue jacket carving a turn on a groomed piste.

Everything in the shop changes on those two days

28 March · skis, boots and poles come in× 2 May · canoes, wetsuits and bikes go out× 28 March · skis, boots and poles come in× 2 May · canoes, wetsuits and bikes go out× 28 March · skis, boots and poles come in×
Layers of blue mountain ridges fading back into the mist.

December to 28 March

Winter

Touring skis, piste skis and boots up to size 48, all serviced on the Monday they come back. We do not hire race kit and we do not hire anything to anyone who has not skied before without an hour of the instructor first.

Piste skis, poles, boots · a day€24

Piste skis, poles, boots · six days€108

Touring set with skins · a day€39

Boots on their own · a day€11

Under-fourteen, anything on this listhalf

Service and a fresh edge, your own skis€28

What we hold as a deposit
A skier in a blue jacket leaning into a turn on a groomed slope.

2 May to the end of October

Summer

Two-seat canoes, one-seat kayaks, wetsuits from age six upwards and eleven bikes. The lake is nine minutes downhill from the door and every hire goes out with a dry bag, because the one thing everybody forgets is a phone in a pocket.

Canoe, two seats · half a day€26

Kayak · half a day€18

Wetsuit, any size · a day€9

Bike, eight gears · a day€17

Dry bag, buoyancy aid, pumpfree with any hire

Trailer to the water and back€6 a boat

What we hold as a deposit
The view out over the bow of a wooden rowing boat towards a green lake and steep mountains.

Deposits, damage and the weather

This is the part every hire shop leaves off its website and the part people ring up about. All of it is on a card by the till in the same words.

The deposit

€120 a set, held on a card and released the same afternoon you bring the kit back. No passport, no driving licence, nothing kept in a drawer overnight.

If something breaks

A core shot, a snapped pole, a torn wetsuit seam: we charge the repair, not the replacement, and the repair is done here. A written-off ski is €180, which is what we paid for it.

If the weather goes

Lifts shut or the lake under a wind warning: bring it back unused within two hours and there is nothing to pay. We would rather have the kit than your money.

Twelve days a year we are shut for the changeover, and on those days the shutter is down and the whole shop is on the floor in pieces. They are always the last three days of March and the first nine days of April.

A person in shorts leaping from a wooden jetty towards green water fringed with reeds.

Nine minutes downhill

The jetty at the end of the track is public, free and has a ladder at the deep end. The water is 14° in May, 19° in July and 12° again by the middle of September, which is colder than it sounds when you are standing on the boards.

What we tell everyone

Never alone, never straight in off the walk, and turn round at the second buoy whatever you think you have left. There is no lifeguard on that lake and there never has been.

Ring before you come up

Slalom

Twelve, Station Road,
opposite the post office
+33 6 39 98 00 41

Open

Winter · daily 07:30–19:00
Summer · daily 08:30–18:30
Shut 29–31 March and 1–9 April

On this page

Slalom is a fictional example. The shop, the prices, the deposit and the changeover dates do not exist, and nothing here is mountain, snow or open-water safety advice. Photographs are stock images and were not taken at this shop.