Val d'Isere Snow Report: 7th January 2012

After the storm... Storm damage in Espace Killy

featured in Snow report Author Debbie Priestley, Val d'Isere Reporter Updated 24 October 2014

Last time I wrote to you we were in the middle of a storm. It felt like we were in Alaska, and we were dealing with a nine o’clock curfew. Today, on the other hand, the clouds cleared in the morning, and we did see a little sunshine. It was bitterly cold though, which the forecast didn’t really predict.

After the storm, there was a lot of wind scouring making any exposed upper slopes very hard and almost icy, this also created a lot of wind slabs and put the avalanche risk up too. Lower down and the storm also had an effect, the Le Fornet tree runs were littered with broken branches. All the fresh snow seems to have blown straight off the mountain, maybe down to St Foy.

The avalanche rating was forecast at a four today but the Piste Patrol soon realised that since there was hardly any natural avalanche activity and very few accidental slides, things were more stable than they expected. Henry, from Henry’s Avalanche Talks, said that the only good sized avalanches that he saw were artificial – “it took big blasts to get things moving in Espace Killy mainly, on east south east faces. So it is makes sense that Météo France has put the forecast rating down to 3 for tomorrow - even 2 in some places in Isère and below 2200m everywhere else”.

Apart from being bitterly cold, the conditions today, on piste, were great. The pistes were well groomed and the visibility was great in the morning, only flattening out into the afternoon. The snow off-piste was very dry and sticky, where there was any.

The weather forecast for the next couple of day is for clear skies and sunshine. The cold temperatures are also due to continue. Next weekend, it looks like we might be due a little more snow again, but it’s really too far away to get a truly accurate forecast.

There is massive amounts of snow at the moment, all over the Northern French Alps, and a lot of locals are commenting on how they can’t remember the last time they have seen the slopes like this.

It really does give us a great base for a long and happy season ahead, especially after the nerves were jangling in early December with so little of the white stuff.

It is important to note that great care should be taken off piste at the moment, the combination of the amount of snow, with the recent storm, means a lot of snow has been transported around by the wind, loading up certain slopes. Do your homework before just jumping off the beaten track!

Enjoy the next few days and let’s hope for a bit of sunshine!