Val d'Isere Snow Report: 11th January 2013

The week started off with sunny skies and warmer temperatures ensuring continuous runs on piste. Where else would we go but as close to the sun as possible in Val d’Isère? As usual, the Pissaillas Glacier didn’t disappoint. With perfectly groomed runs and little traffic, we sped through the glacier with ease and fun. Heading back through the Fornet, we took over the teleski, working on some jib tricks and basically annoying the STVI guy in charge of the lift as much as possible. After some runs down to the base of the Fornet Téléphérique, we made our way back to Solaise with Léssieres. We hit up Glacier Express to work on some of our really unstylish 180s and 360s, nearly breaking tailbones along the way, and made a pit stop at l’Ouillette. From there, back to Bellevarde to take over Grand Pré and its awesome little kickers to endure more impossible bum pain. After a slow version of la Face, we were ready for some après-ski!

The next day, much to our surprise, we woke up to some cloud cover in the valley. Being stubborn as we are, we decided our time would be best spent over in Tignes as high in elevation as possible. Who wouldn’t want to ski and ride in a cloud? With the wind picking up, our approach was cautious but our enthusiasm on override. It appeared that the coming clouds had deterred many fellow snow lovers from hitting the pistes. More for us! Tearing up the glacier in standard fashion, we raced back down to Val Claret to start the trajectory for our next feat: the infamous black Sache. Heading up past the amazing Tignes Snowpark, we headed down to Tignes Le Lac to take refuge from the heavy winds and decreasing temperatures. After an amazing burger in the Tchuss and a couple different drinks to warm our toes, we took the Palafour lift looking for more little kickers to play around with. Getting slightly lost aside, we finally made our way to the top of l’Aiguille Percée and made our way down as best we could now that all visibility had disappeared. Somehow, we stumbled our way through the Sache piste, deciding that we were better off on the black piste rather than the red. Great choice! Another face slam and we were on our way back to Val d’Isère, ready for Ibuprofen and rest.

And, as you all can imagine, rest we did not. How could we when a good 30 centimeters came down overnight? We did what anyone else not working on Fridays: we tore it up! Having gotten ready for 9, we were disappointed to see all lifts still closed. It turns out that no one was expecting so much snow to come down in the last 24 hours meaning that the pisteurs still had many areas to bomb before considering it safe. Another 45 minutes and we were up the Funival with all other fresh powder lovers, already imagining the amazing lines to hit on the way down. Four runs down to la Daille with little visibility but fluffy white cushions to catch us as we fell and we were completely exhausted. Besides, after hitting another tree, I decided it might be time to finally buy that thing to protect the head everyone seems to be raving about these days. I am now fully prepped and ready to go!