In February Alpe d'Huez will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the creation of world's 1st POMA ski lift, the Eclose lift, built in 1936 by Jean Pomagalski, future manager of the international firm Poma. Back then, the purists who used to climb with their sealskins, would laugh at those using this lift to climb the 50m vertical slope, and named it "the Idiots run".
The Eclose Lift came within a few years of the installation of the first modern rope tows in Quebec in the late 1920s and the first T Bar in Davos, Switzerland, two years before. Mr Pomagalsi could hardly have dreamt of the tens of thousands of ski lifts that would be built around the world over the next 70 years.
For 2005-6 the ski areas of 2 Alpes and Alpe d'Huez are now accessible with one ski pass covering the combined 450km of runs. However, the ticket is not fully interchangeable, with each resort allowing two days in the other on a six day ticket.
