Val d'Isere Snow Report: 5th February 2013

While that sounds simple enough, we’ve repeatedly been surprised by conditions more than once as we pull our curtains back to check out the weather. No one in Val trusts the weather man anymore, with good reason!

Since last week, we have woken up to more than one phone call announcing ‘snow! So much snow; let’s go!’ Doing what any other seasonnaire would do while not working Saturdays, we went! With the slight warm spell hitting the Espace Killy on Wednesday and Thursday, we decided Friday night that Saturday would not include time off-piste. We believed the risk to be quite high and didn’t want to find ourselves in unnecessary risky situations. It turns out that we didn’t even need to head out of bounds to get the goods! Heading up Solaise, we realized that not only were we on the fourth chair with people heading up the mountain, but that there wouldn’t be too many people competing for fresh tracks! Thank the rest of the resort for taking care of transfer days! With that, we lapped Solaise Express until our legs were on the point of collapsing and our old injuries resurfaced. We even had the luck of discovering a piste I have never seen ever before. I swear, it was as though we had just stumbled upon our very own version of Platform 9 ¾, the magical spot for powder slashes and face shots!

The next day was spent with another crew of people who really know their way around the Val d’Isère’s off-piste. Fighting the lack of visibility here and there, we ventured over to Solaise, paying attention to the snow conditions along the way. We headed into the side-piste between the flats leading to the Mattis piste and the L. Wet and thick enough to hold us up, but not heavy enough to keep us down, the snow was absolutely amazing. We ripped this side up a few times and finally headed down to the bottom of the Laisinant lift. We decided to follow the sunshine and make our way to the bottom of the Olympique.

Once up there we realized that the only place to go was the Tignes Glacier, well above the nearly black clouds the wind kept pushing through the valley. By the time we had reached Tignes Val Claret, the wind had really begun to pick up, freezing our uncovered faces and chilling us to the bone. It took us a while to figure it out, but dissapointment quickly began sinking in; the Grande Motte Glacier was closed due to high winds. Tired, hurting, and cold, we accepted defeat, and slowly picked our way home through the increasing amount of people on the pistes.

These last couple of days, we’ve been waking up to a fair amount of snow coming down. At times, the smallest flakes will be coming down, making us confuse this snow for rain, giving us panic attacks. The next minute, potato crisp sized snowflakes layer gently to the ground, giving us promise for the next powder shred session. All in all, we’ve been patiently waiting for the snow to keep accumulating and for the temperatures to stay at a steady -5. Until then, we’ll keep nursing our old ankle injuries, get all of our work done, and continue drinking a couple pints here and there to pass the time until our next face shots.

Only time will tell when this will be a reality!