Blue skies continue in Val d'Isere

Even though we are desperate for some new snow for the off-piste skiing we’ve continued to find excellent conditions, although we are very limited due to the rain-crust, wind damage and track damage. The wind picked up significantly on Monday and again on Wednesday, when there were some nice strips of soft snow that had blown in with the wind, making for some pleasant skiing. It’s not powder skiing but anything that is soft underfoot and comfortable is welcome, especially when it opens up some more options. With the colder temperatures we’ll also have some snow that was previously un-skiable because of a crust starting to improve, as the cold night’s start to break up the surface tension and eventually those slopes will become good frisset and become good skiing again. The regeneration of the snow is amazing as a hard stiff crust that you can jump up and down on will eventually become soft frisset (which is a form of regenerated powder) with enough cold nights.

On Monday I skied a line I’ve never skied before, although I’ve been eyeballing it for the past three years. After skinning up for 90-minutes the itinerary that we normally ski was tracked, so I decided to give the new route a go and we were rewarded with clean snow and great ambience. On Tuesday we headed up to the Fornet for the first time in ten days or so, and we skied a run in the Combe du 3300 before heading over the Col Pers. The wind has ravaged the Fornet sector so we were skiing strips of snow that had blown in with the wind and was relatively smooth. On Wednesday the temperature dropped so we stayed in the sun and had a nice skin towards the Crete du Genepy, and we had some lovely snow while keeping as warm as possible. We had a beautiful sea of cloud first thing on Wednesday morning, but we stayed above it and it dispersed fairly quickly and was never really a factor. Thursday was another beautiful day but even colder with a temperature of -14C at the bottom of the Borsat Chairlift. The skiing was excellent again and for some reason the pistes seemed a little bit quieter.

Several days ago there was a massive avalanche on the west face of the Bellecote in La Plagne, measuring 500m wide with a fracture line of 2m. A 12-year-old boy was buried under 70cm of snow for 53 minutes and was eventually found by an avalanche rescue dog as he wasn’t equipped with a transceiver. He only survived because of some sort of air pocket, and it was an incredibly lucky escape. The avalanche risk on the day was 2/5, and on Wednesday the risk dropped to 1/5, and it just shows that care and attention is always needed even when the risk is low. I’ve included a photo of the pavement in front of my apartment to show the ice as the pavements in town remain incredibly dangerous.

If you like live music, my colleague Andreas will be playing après-ski with Karen at Le Petit Danois at 17:15 on Friday, and they’ll be playing every Friday for the rest of the season. There is also live music every night of the week except for Monday’s at the Baraque, starting at 19:30. The music in town is fantastic, so come along and enjoy youself. The forecast for the weekend is cold with sunny skies. There may be a few clouds floating about on Saturday but nothing serious. Besides Friday the weekend should be very quiet as the busiest week of the season draws to an end, so have a fantastic weekend and log-on for another update on Monday.