I’ll be honest, I’ve never been in a cable car, 3,000 metres above sea level and thought: this is lovely, but it would be even better if I was standing on the roof, writes Nicola Iseard in The Guardian.
So when I received an invitation to the launch of the new cable car cabins at Tignes Grande Motte, Savoie, I had to reread it to be sure I had understood it correctly: “Boasting the world’s largest cable car roof terrace.” It sounded terrifying.
At 3,034 metres, the Grande Motte cable car base station is higher than many Alpine resorts. From here cable cars climb almost 500 vertical metres over the Grand Motte glacier to the top station at 3,456 metres. It’s as “up there” as you get in terms of accessing the mountains with your trainers on – the second-highest cable car in France after the Aiguille de Midi in Chamonix.
To reach base station, passengers take a funicular which tunnels 1,000 metres up through the mountain from the village of Val Claret to the Grande Motte glacial plateau.
Once on the cable car, I was one of the first people to climb the small metal staircase onto the roof. I was so busy taking my camera out of my backpack that I didn’t notice we’d started moving. The new car is astonishingly quiet, and smooth. The chest-high glass barrier surrounding the deck acted as a windbreaker, and with the sun shining there was no need for a jacket.
From our rooftop spot, we had 360-degree views of a sea of peaks: Grande Casse, with its imposing summit ridge and broad, steep runnelled face and, in the distance, Mont Blanc. Below us was an expanse of blue-grey ice and huge yawning crevasses.