History of previous attempts

Carlene Walker's “tunnel and roads” - 2006
In the fall of 2006, Utah State Senator Carlene Walker a Cottonwood Heights Republican, member of the Senate transportation committee and proponent of private investment in toll roads tried to advance her idea on a so-called AltaBright Tunnel and CottonPark Interconnect that would join the three canyons into what some called "one 7-resort Megaplex."

The plan was to use money from tolls, federal funds and special finance districts to build a single-bore tunnel from connecting Alta and Brighton that would cost an estimated $250 million, and an all-season road to Park City that would cost from $50 million to $150 million . The proposed road and tunnel would have connected Deer Valley, The Canyons, Park City Mountain Resort, Snowbird, Alta, Brighton and Solitude. The concept would have allowed skiers to drive between mountaintop resorts instead of up and down canyon roads or Interstate 80, already subject to heavy traffic.

On November 3, 2006, 25 of the most influential people in the Utah ski industry were invited to a meeting at the governor s office to discuss the proposal and nothing about it has been heard since...

Bob Theobald's Tram System - 1990
During the seventies and eighties, Bob Theobald a former freestyle ski champion expanded a lot of energy and money ($200,000 by his own words) to advance a proprietary, self propelled lift system composed of 28 forty-passenger trams that would have travelled from Park City all the way to Snowbird and back, via Solitude, Brighton and Alta.

The one-way ride would have taken 40 minutes while the entire cost for the infrastructure was estimated at that time to stand at $34 million. This unique lift would have been built totally in the U.S.A. According to Theobald, some of the biggest problems in the way of his plan were the local resorts that didn't know how to allocate lift ticket revenues and the Salt Lake City water authority that ran in fierce opposition to his plan. He abandoned the idea in 1990...

History of Les Trois Vallées

Les Trois Vallées or The Three Valleys is the largest interconnect in the world, situated in Savoie, above the town of Moûtiers and near the Vanoise National Park. The history and development of Les Trois Vallées' interconnect is more a randomly orchestrated confluence of events combined with organic development than a sudden decision to “link a bunch of resorts together.”

This huge network of ski areas came to being in 1937 when Scottish Major Peter Lindsay approached Sir Arnold Lunn, an earlier ski pionneer, to get his opinion on skiing opportunities in Vanoise and Tarentaise. Sir Arnold Lunn introduced him to Emile Allais (a 1936 Olympic medal winner) and André Tournier (a local skier and mountaineer) who would guide Lindsay through the three valleys and plan a ski resort in the valley of Les Allues. The alpine valleys of St Bon, Les Allues and Les Belleville had the same potential for skiing as the best Swiss resort of the moment.

Click on map to enlarge

In 1938 a first hotel, Le Doron was being built above the hamlet of Mussillion. This hotel was associated with The Three Valley’s first lift, the “Red Dragon,” a 19-seat cable sled. As the name Mussillian was too difficult for the British to pronounce, the Major renamed it Méribel. Peter Lindsay moved to Meribel permanently where he created the Société Foncière de la Vallée des Allues, upon which he he gradually developed the resort. In December 1938, the Saint Bon town council voted a land development for the Courchevel and Moriond sites. While the resort industry came to screeching halt during World War II, the the planning continued as the project was privately financed.

Laurent Chappis, a young architect held captive in an interment camp, had a plan to create an interconnect involving three resort, and applied it to The Three Valleys. He was helped by Maurice Michaud, another prisoner who also was a civil engineer. The town council had appointed Laurent Chappis as its urban planner and charged him with the planning of the resort. As both prisoners were realease in March 1946, they began drawing the plans for the lifts located above St. Bon, and received help from Jean Blanc, a local skier and Jean Pomagalski, the founder of Poma Lifts.

"The first Three Valleys multi-areas ski passes were sold in 1958"

A first surface lift from Courchevel to Les Tovets opened in December 1946 and another one between Les Tovets and La Loze followed in January 1947. Courchevel would become the initial link in The Three Valleys network. From that point on, things followed rapidly with the opening of the Hotel Departmental Des Trois Vallées in December 1947 and the Hotel de la Loze in January 1948.

The resort needed a name, Chappis wanted it to remain the ‘Plateau des Tovets’ but others believed a new resort needed a punchier moniker. Pierre de la Gontrie suggested Courchevel, the name of a hamlet situated someway down the mountain; in the process, and after much discussions, it was decided that the original Courchevel would be renamed Courchevel 1550, and Les Tovets called Courchevel 1850.

In December 1951, Courchevel and the Les Allues valley were finally connected via the Burgin Saulire lift. At this time, in the Allues valley, Méribel was being developed. As its three first surface lifts were installed, the valley was connected to the electric grid for the first time. In August 1952, the Saulire tram began operations and in November 1954, Emille Allais took over the management of Courchevel. The first Three Valleys ski passes were sold in 1958. In 1970 a mountain airport was added, followed by additional subdivisions. More importantly, 1973 saw the introduction of a single lift ticket accessing the entire network.

In 1963, Méribel counted100 houses built and over 10 lifts, including the Saulire cabriolet that linked the resort to Courchevel since 1951. In 1960, the Tougnète gondola allowed for the first access into the third valley des Bellevilles. As the resorts kept on developing, a new extension was planned up into the valley, in an area also known as Mottaret. Named Meribel-Mottaret, the new ski-in, ski-out resort began operations in time for the 1972/73 winter season.

The valley des Belleville appeared on scene when in 1960, Nicolas Jay, its mayor, commissioned a tourism development study. This is how les Ménuires came to being in 1964. As the upper valley offered even greater skiing potential, Joseph Fontanet, the new mayor of Saint-Martin de Belleville asked a developer in 1969 to plan and design the resort of Val Thorens, further up in the valley and with easy access to the glaciers, that opened in December 1971. Over time, Val Thoren kept on strengthening its notoriety and added in 1982 the Caron tram to its lift infrastructure.

Some smaller resorts that are now part of The Three Valleys did not develop until the 90’s. La Tania is one of them and used to be a little hamlet halfway between Meribel and Courchevel known as “La Tagna”. In December 1990, it opened as a new resort, rechristened “La Tania”. As implied by its name, the area originally consisted of three valleys: Saint-Bon, Allues, and Belleville. The skiing area has since been extended into a 'fourth' valley, the Maurienne valley. It is adjacent to Val Thorens and today, Orelle is the latest addition to the world's largest interconnect; used as a back entrance into Val Thorens, it also offers some excellent off-pistes itineraries...

History of Les Portes du Soleil

Les Portes du Soleil is one of the largest European interconnects centered around Morzine-Avoriaz, in the French Alps and straddling into neighboring Switzerland.
The story started shortly after the hometown’s skier Jean Vuarnet, won a gold medal in downhill at the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics. In the late summer of that year, Vuarnet met with a group of neighboring Swiss ski industry leaders and started to envision the first international interconnect that would eventually network eleven resorts between Savoie and Valais.

"To established French ski areas that had built their snow trade since the 1930’s, it made little sense to open the flood gates and let their hard-won clientele wonder over the Swiss border..."

The group of innkeepers and ski instructors from Champery and Val d’Illez that had met with Jean Vuarnet was gung-ho about the project as they were starving for more tourist traffic into their remote valleys, their French counterparts were lukewarm at best. To established ski areas like Morzine, Les Gets and Chatel that had gradually built their snow trade since the 1930’s, it made little sense to open the flood gates and let their hard-won clientele wonder over the border. That fear was also shared by a number of Swiss stakeholders. “Why send our few clients to the competitors” was a common comment heard on both sides of the border.

In spite of these reactions, a company was set up in 1963 and opened to any interested French or Swiss entity interested by the project. The first practical step was a 3-D model of the networked resorts built for the Lausanne National Swiss Expo of 1964. At the Expo, the model got noticed by the press and elicited a great deal of interest from the public. The project was christened “Portes du Soleil” or “Gateway to the Sun”.

In January of 1968, almost eight years after the first brainstorming, the connection between Morzine-Avoriaz and Champery was established with the completion of two lifts meeting on the ridgeline separating the two countries. The following year a joint ski pass was offered to skiers looking for a borderless adventure. Before the computer age, it was agreed that each resort would keep its sales receipts regardless of the actual usage by consumers who had purchased the interconnected pass.

In the mid seventies, more ski resorts joined in and now the network looked more like a modern day’s interconnect. By 1981, the vision that started in 1960 became a solid reality; by that time, all participating ski mountains had adopted the same computerized ski-pass system that would compensate each partner on the basis of actual usage by skiers and snowboarders. Today, the Portes du Soleil claims a network of eleven mountain villages offering 40,000 acres of ski and snowboard runs served by 194 lifts, 150 miles of cross-country tracks and 240 miles of snowshoe trails.