Val d'Isere Snow Report: 23rd January 2013

Every time we expected snow, we got blue skies and a burning sun. And conversely, every time we expected that radiant light, we got zero visibility and low temperatures!

Sunday was a day absolutely covered in clouds. Don’t get me wrong - clouds are fine when they bring in some snow, but when they just sit their grey butts on our mountaintops, we have issues. I decided to rebel against this current state of affairs by resting my overly tired legs and heading to the Centre Aquasportif for an afternoon run instead before checking the Polo Masters Final. Awesome alternative if you ask me!

Yesterday was announced as being a beautiful sunny day with some cloud presence here and there. One could argue that this was true. However, I hardly count the hour between 08:00 and 09:00 as the length of a day! When the clouds came in strong and any hope of visibility disappeared as quickly as the sun, I took my unheard of second day off in a row. I know! How can I call myself a seasonaire when I have chosen to skip two days?! I just happen to call myself as seasonaire who likes to stay injury free. Unfortunately, my cousin wasn’t as lucky and walked away with a broken wrist and sprained elbow… Besides, with sunny skies expected for today, I knew there had to be powder in the works!

For once, I was right! We woke up this morning to some of the fluffiest 10 to 15 cm I have ever seen. Granted, we would have loved to wake up to 40 more cm, but we’ll take what we can get! This morning began with our need to find the light, sending us up the Olympic onto Bellevarde. We rode the side-pistes twice before stopping for a coffee. The snow on the piste was absolutely prime! With the wind blowing hard these past couple of weeks, the trees were pretty crunchy under this new layer, keeping us to the piste. Taking this into account during our strategic coffee break, we headed over to Solaise to see what was left to hit on that side.

We weren’t disappointed! Taking Solaise Expresse to Glacier Expresse, we rode all of the way down to the bottom of the Laisinant lift by sneaking in-between the Mattis and the L! The fact that the L, a trail often times closed due to avalanche risk, was open greatly reassured us and as such, we made our way to the top of the Laisinant, scouting lines along the way. Dipping over to the Fornet, we gallivanted down and decided to test the trees. With last week’s cold temperatures, the snow in the Fornet trees remained pretty nice, regardless of all of the passing through. Although our hearts wanted to test out more spots in the trees, our legs suggested sticking to pistes after lunch.

The better part of the afternoon was spent getting snow absolutely everywhere. By everywhere, I’m specifically refering to the inside of my helmet, pants, and jacket as I was trying to land tricks in the powder off of the small kickers following Grand Prè.

If you're on holiday this week, enjoy the fresh snow, roll with the visibility punches and bon ski!

Bon ski!