When you can't write about how rad you are, or how rad your powder skiing is, then what do you write about? I don't know what the proverbial "you" would do, as I can't speak for that person, or people, whoever they may be. But I can say that I would write about spatial planning. And by would, I mean that's what you're about to read, if you're actually still reading at this point.
Still? Okay.
Courmayeur used to consist of about four lifts, at least according to the old Mont Blanc map hanging in the Ronzani's house. There was the main tram that went from town up to the Plan Checrouit, a smallish flat area at the edge of the steep valley wall. There was a seggiovia, or chairlift, that went up to the Col Checrouit starting a few hundred yards from where the tram let off. From the top of that lift there were two other trams going to the Cresta Youla and the Cresta Arp respectively from where I'm pretty sure no one skied, at least on a regular basis, as there is high avalanche danger pretty much all the time. So essentially Courmayeur was one chairlift, if you consider where most people skiied. Fast forward a few years. Courmayeur is the sexiest resort north of Milan, so the lift society decided to install a few more lifts. Most of them start at Plan Checrouit. Now, instead of one tram and one chair, which has become the world's smallest six person gondola, they've added an eight person gondola from the valley, a double chair, a six-pack chairlift, a magic carpet for the kiddies and the occasional rich divorcee looking to learn how to ski and maybe take the maestro's pants off later, and a Poma. [Sound of incredulous whistle here.] That's a lot of infrastructure to add to an area about the size of two football fields. But wait, there's more. Throw in a couple of bars and restaurants, a ski rental shop, and something that looks like an ice-fishing shack from Lake Champlain that sells cocktails and french fries (for the Brits, I think). In short, pretty much anything you could want is right there. The Courmayeur resort management, realizing that everyone would eventually end up right there, hired someone to plan out skier-traffic flows and the like. This person decided that the best way to slow people down in the area would be to bottleneck everything into the smallest possible area. The result is a 75 to 100 meter wide trail suddenly narrowing to 10 meters with Caution! Slow! signs creating three distinct channels that funnel into a narrow area between two buildings where people congregate to buy tickets, meet instructors, rent skis, wear things made of fur, and eat french fries. Usually, on a good day, there's a six foot wide corridor between ever-shuffling bodies in which to ski to get to the gondola, the double, the six-pack, as well as the tram and the gondola to the valley. To be honest, I'm more afraid of the Plan Checrouit area than I am of avalanches because with avalanches I can control my exposure. Also, you're not allowed to use your shovel to dig out of the Plan Checrouit. The Polizia, who patrol the area in randonnee boots, would get pissed.
But it's okay, really. It would be really bad if the people who came to Courmayeur coudn't ski, if they panicked as soon as they saw the Slow! signs and threw on the brakes, curving in wild arcs across the entire piste concentrating their entire visual range on the tips of their skis without looking around for anyone else. Now that would be harrowing.
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