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Val d'Isere Snow Report: 22nd February 2016

The pistes are in top condition in the Espace Killy just now

featured in Snow report Author Wayne Watson, Val d'Isere Reporter Updated

We had another cracking weekend of skiing with some varied conditions. After a beautiful day on Thursday when I took my 12-year-old daughter on her first ‘skinning’ adventure, Friday proved to be much tougher as most of Val d’Isere and Tignes were shrouded in thick cloud.

I headed up to the Fornet where we luckily had some patches of decent light and we profited from three 10-minute walks and skied some brilliant powder snow. The sun even shone for us on our last big pitch to the bottom and it made for a great finish!

Saturday started out sunny until about 10:30 and we skied an excellent Face du Charvet before the clouds rolled in and it started snowing. Although the light was flat for the rest of the day the skiing was excellent with lovely soft snow. Saturday afternoon saw the wind start to pick up and a rare ice-storm blew in and ice was sticking to people’s sunglasses and goggles. It was solid and couldn’t be wiped off and the result of the ice storm was an icy crust on many slopes off-piste on Sunday morning. It was what a call ‘skiers snow’ and was fun to ski, but it was definitely ‘educational’ and wasn’t for weaker skiers or the faint-hearted! (See photos).

The piste skiing has been brilliant all weekend as the grooming has been first-class in both Tignes and Val d’Isere. The piste bashers do a fantastic job night-in- and-night- out and we’re very fortunate to have such skilled drivers in the Espace Killy. With the extremely warm temperatures on Sunday there was even a hint of spring with a lovely ‘spring-like’ feel to the snow.

The wind picked up considerably Sunday afternoon while I was out skiing with my wife and the next few days should be interesting.

Weather:

  • Monday - Partially sunny until 1PM then rain/light snow -1C/+8C Wind from the SW at 10 gusting to 50km/h
  • Tuesday - light snow -2C/+2C Wind from the S at 5 gusting to 40km/h
  • Wednesday - Partially sunny -5C/+1C Wind from the W at 5 gusting to 45km/h
  • Thursday - Partially sunny/light snow -6C/0C Wind from the NW at 5km/h
  • Friday - Partially sunny/light snow -9C/-3C Wind from the NW at 5km/h

After a warm day on Monday it will start to cool down and become much colder towards the end of the week. Some wind is forecast for the next three days but hopefully it won’t spoil our fun!

I thought the resort felt a bit quieter Sunday afternoon and with any luck not too many more people will arrive before Monday.

Have a fantastic week and stay tuned for another update on Friday!

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Location

Map of the surrounding area