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More snow this week across the Espace Killy

Another great week skiing in Val d'Isere

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

We had some fresh snow early in the week and profited with some fantastic powder skiing, followed by a couple of days a wonderful spring snow. The sun has been shining for the most part and it’s been a brilliant week for all those lucky enough to be here.

After some fresh snow Sunday night we skied some wonderful snow Monday morning at the Fornet in the Grand Vallon, the Combe du Signal, the Pays Desert and then over the Col Pers. We received a dusting of fresh snow Monday night and returned to the Fornet while waiting for the for the spring slopes to transform and skied two lovely powder runs in the Col Pers.

After a good freeze Tuesday night followed by clear blue skies we had a stunning day of ‘classic’ Val d’Isere spring slopes around the Charvet, Mont Roup, the Arcelle and the Marmottons into the Marmottes. These are all big impressive slopes and when the snow is ‘clean’ and just the right texture it's pretty difficult to beat. There was a light freeze on Wednesday night so the skiing was a little trickier on Thursday. The snow was much more fragile and we needed to ski less aggressively with less edge to avoid breaking through but we had another cracking morning in Tignes skiing a couloir off the Palafour, followed by another couloir in the Sachette (one that I haven’t skied in a few years) and two runs in the Campanules.

To arrive on time and get the best piste skiing it’s the same technique as skiing spring snow off-piste. Start with the east facing pistes which soften first then follow the sun around as it moves through to the south, west and then finally north later in the day. If you ski west or north first thing in the morning you can be guaranteed to find hard-frozen-icy-uncomfortable-snow. Yuck!

We have a very festive atmosphere in town now as the season winds down. Many of the bars have live music on the terraces and people are walking around in shorts and tee-shirts soaking up the sun. The shorts and tee-shirts might come to an abrupt halt however as we have some snow and cloudy weather forecast over the weekend followed by much colder weather next week.

  • Friday- Cloudy with drizzle +1C/+8C Wind from the S at 5km/h
  • Saturday-Cloudy with drizzle 0C/+5C Wind from the NW at 5km/h
  • Sunday-Cloudy -3C/+1C Wind from the NW at 5km/h
  • Monday-Partially sunny -7C/0C Wind from the NW at 10km/h

If the sun isn’t going to shine and we have cloud cover over the weekend the drizzle isn’t such bad news as it will at least snow further up the mountain. Anything falling out of the sky helps to clean up the tracks and gives us a chance of a morning or two of winter snow on northerly slopes followed by improved spring snow when the sun comes back out. That’s a skier talking but the drizzle certainly puts a damper on the terrace's music and party scene!

Have a great weekend and log on for another update on Monday.

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Location

Map of the surrounding area