Snow Reports

Unfortunately the very warm wind we’ve had for the last few days has had a drastic effect on the snow level:

Looking across the lower slopes - contrast with Sunday's photo!

I had to drive round to the Village (2 Alpes 1800) and go up from there as high winds had stopped the gondolas from working. Having got up there, I was surprised to find that the Bellecombe was working, which I wasn’t expecting. I saw my first marmotte of the year on the way up in the chairlift, but failed miserably to photograph him. He was a magnificent specimen.

The Cretes was like glue, so a quick pop up the Cretes chair from which I took a picture looking South, showing that it was really not a bad day (apart from the wind)

La Muzelle to the South from the Grand Cretes chairlift

and then round towards the Bellecombe. I considered skiing down the top of the Thuit, as it hadn’t been much tracked, but the gluey consistency of the snow at that level put me off. On the way along the path, you could see that what looked like little trickles of snow down the Rachat were actually pretty meaty lumps:

Quite huge lumps of snow have rolled down the Rachat - I wouldn't like to try skiing it now!

Having got to the Bellecombe I thought ‘OK, go up – it would be rude not to’, and on the way up there were a group of young people building an igloo just above the really steep part of the Grand Couloir (oh sorry! Bellecombes 5! )

Building an Igloo

I did manage a few reasonable turns in the corner of Grand Nord (in between what’s now Bellcombe 3 and Bellecombe 4) where there was a spot of off piste snow that had firmed up. Only about 5-8 turns, but the best of the day in terms of snow conditions. From there I struggled down to the bottom of the Bellecombe lift again where I took this panorama looking up to 2,600m and including the Bellecombe chairlift on the right and the exit of the Grand Couloir just to the left of it:

Panorama

From here I managed to get myself down the path to the Cretes (having to skate most of the way) and then on down the Valentin:

Looking down the Valentin for the last time this winter

The snow on the Valentin was actually much better as it was very wet and therefore much more skiable than the glue-like substance higher up!  It doesn’t look like much, but it was skiable right down to the bottom of the Village chair which you can see in the picture. It would be nice to say that it was a pleasure to ski today, but sadly it was not Truly horrible snow almost everywhere. Oh well – roll on the summer season!

I probably won’t write much in the way of blogs until the opening of the summer on 16th June, but will try to take the odd photo.

The mountain has been closed again today due to high winds, and it doesn’t look good for tomorrow which is closing day. I do hope to be able to ski a bit, but if the only open slopes are the two tiny nursery slopes still operating I don’t think I will bother. Bummer!

I have also disabled comments on this blog I’m afraid. I have enjoyed hearing that people have enjoyed reading it; but there are just too many spammers now, so I can’t risk it any more. Sorry. I don’t understand why they think it’s fun.

Oh YUK! The weather is horrible. 2 days ago the early morning looked like this:

Lovely early morning

and the temperature was -6. Yesterday there was a howling wind and the temperature was +1 at about the same time. the mountain was closed due to the wind.

Today the temperature is +10, the wind has moderated a bit, but is still very strong and the view at about the same time looks like this:

The snowline has risen hugely and look at all that grey-ness

it’s the last day of the winter season tomorrow, and I shall ski whatever, but if it stays like this it won’t be for long!

OMG!  Yet more snow another 15-20cms overnight, and around the Bellecombe area we found some 20-30cms powder. IT WAS A POWDER-FEST!

I took these three pix out of the White Eggs on the way up to the Cretes first thing and put them together:

Views down to the town and to the South and North across the lower slopes

We started by skiing some powder on the Cretes:

This powder is only at 2,100m!

We then moved on to lap the top of the Thuit twice:

It's steeper than it looks in the photo - but look at that snow!

Rob got better and better in it, this is on the second run:

This man is 6'5" tall - how deep is that snow?

By around 11.00 the snow in the Thuit was beginning to get a bit heavier, so we moved on to the Bellecombe, where first we skied the corner, with hardly any tracks at all, lovely snow and Rob my student getting better and better in it. Then we skied off the side of the Bellecombe 2 red into the blue which is a short pitch, but really steep and very deep – fabulous!

A much better position on a much steeper slope with much deeper snow

Of course … all good things come to an end:  :(

Oops!

We then repaired for a coffee break at 2,600m and met up with some other friends and although I skied back down the rest of the gang went off to find some more powder I’m waiting to hear.

The Valentin was OK, but not especially nice to ski today. It must have been nice first thing though. I skied without trouble down to the bottom of the Lutins slope in the middle of town.

Well …………………       La Grave – perfect powder at the top, the real McCoy light and fluffy and at least half way up to me knees!

This was the real thing, completely light and fluffy

We set off in the morning and en route down the mountain, noticed that it was steaming! It did look as though the forest and the village of Cuculet were on fire, but it was just the melting snow steaming in the sunshine!

No - not on fire!

There is a village behind that lot

Having driven round to La Grave it looked magnificent, although clearly not possible to ski all the way down. A number of people were skiing down to P1, although later in the day it looked distinctly dodgy. On our arrival at the top station we spotted a couple making a heart in the snow and demonstrating how deep it was:

Look how deep that is on foot!

There seemed to be some sort of party going on at the restaurant there, but we only had a drink before setting off down the Vallons de la Meije. The first pitch was out of this world, and the rest of it was pretty good too!

Looking up, tracks in the powder

We only skied down to the middle station, because the friend who was with me  was very inexperienced in deep snow, but I enjoyed it anyway. By lunchtime the snow nearer the 2,400m mark was getting a bit heavy, and I don’t think it would have been worth skiing down to P1 anyway. We had a nice drink and a tart (fruit variety) on the terrace at 2,400, looking up at this magical mountain:

Iconic

After a good while we had to come back down but even at the bottom the view was quite something:

Moodier later in the day

What a lovely ski – quality, not quantity! If the forecast snow continues, it’s going to be amazing at the beginning of May!

Wow! Big dump overnight, even here at around 1600m! It’s still snowing buckets too

The wild rose bush is very heavily laden this morning

Plenty of snow has drifted over to the fence

Just as much on the other side of the house - the Diable is behind those trees!

The forecasts are still saying reasonable weather for tomorrow afternoon …..

Actually yesterday was quite a nice day on and off. Some sunshine for short periods from time to time, but mostly fairly grey with the odd snowflake floating around. In the late afternoon I took this pic from the balcony of an apartment in the Residence le Soleil showing a bit of brightness on the ridge of La Muzelle.

The photo is not actually B & W - it was just a very colourless afternoon!

It’s been much brighter today, and although I didn’t make it up the hill, it made a really nice change to be able to see it!

The natural snow line is now back to about 17-1800m

The freezing fog that’s been down here for days has lifted a bit, and the result is very pretty frosted trees (it melted later of course)

Very pretty this morning, I had to move around to get the sun out of the photo

Friday is currently looking really nice, and I’m thinking about a trip to La Grave … lots of fresh snow forecast between now and then

I haven’t been up the mountain, but it’s still continuing to snow here. Most of the time, most of the days and most of the nights! It looks from the forecasts as though this is going to continue most of the time until closing day on 28th April! Some really good end of season freshies to be had.

Another top up

That was this morning, and later, at about lunchtime I took this pretty picture of the stream outside the house, under the Willow tree. In summer you can hear it but not see it due to the height of the vegetation on both banks.

The stream rushing along with all the meltwater and the rain and snow

Happy birthday to my brother David!

It was very cloudy down in the village this morning, but the webcams promised better visibility higher up and they were right:

Rising above the clouds near the top of the Jandri Express

We then went up the T bar, the first time for the girls on their own. They did it very well.

The Hot Tots learning to ride the T bar

Once we got to the top we seemed to be above everything:

Panorama from 3,400m this morning - floating in the air

We were certainly curious about this bunch of nutters!

The girls pose with some interesting characters

The snow on the glacier was exceptional. soft and silky and smooth – as good as it gets on the piste. Off the piste in sheltered spots we also found some genuine powder snow Of course we had to ski in it and then we went back up again! We returned down the Puy Salié piste and then skied down to 2,600. The snow remained really excellent all the way down to 2,600 which we reached at about 12.30.

It was so nice that I went down from there in the Jandri Express, afraid to spoil the day!