Les Deux Alpes winter 2006-2007

well it was horrid today, not too cold but a bit of wind, lots of fog and it was snowing. In fact here is a pic of snow. I had trouble breathing on the glacier, but it was better lower down (I did have lots of clothes on). Got the van back tonight too.

On the whole the snow was pretty good, about 10cms of fresh up top, but quite firm underneath. skied pretty much all around the mountain except for the Fee, and had great soft, slightly wet snow on Valentin at around 4.30. It was much better than I expected at the bottom, but in the village it never got beyond sleet I'm afraid. Still with Grande Pente Yesterday and Valentin today, no probs skiing down. I think Valentin will be OK till the end of the month, GP and others probably for another week with care.

It was a very odd day today. At first it was hot and sunny - actually much too hot. The snow on the Cretes was positively gooey by lunchtime and got pregressively slower and wetter through the afternoon. However around 15.00 or so it began to cloud over (but not over us), and there were monster black clouds all around + thunder and lightning! ADH and Auris looked to be in the middle of it, but it never quite made it over here. It was enough for them to start pushing peeps off the hill at around 16.00 though (but we stayed out). It was also enough to cause the lift in our building (and my own electricity) to cut off - so I had to walk up 6 flights of stairs to get home. Here's a pic of the big black cloud ......

We also hd a nice drink later in the Lutins with Annie, Colin B and Chris Bish + many other Easiskiers and kids

Very warm today, and sunny most of the time. The glacier was great all day, and it wasn't nearly as busy as yesterday. I had a mjor contretemps with a very obnoxious english teenager and his even more obnoxious father - teen nearly knocked over one of my little kids (we were only using half a wide piste), then would have knocked me over if I hadn't been able to turn instantly. I caught him and berrated him, and he kept saying I was over-reacting and he was in control and not close to me. Red wasn't the colour I saw - I nearly hit him with my stick. Father, of course, kept saying son was no probs. the boy was totally out of control - no apologies - no respect and as I say nearly knocked over a quite small child.

Anyway, that was a 2600, so we went to the glacier which was much better. snow was slushy below 3000m at 17.00, but below 2,600 was strangely OK. Here is pic of view at around 17.00 - empty pistes

Miserable all day today. A bit windy above about 2,800m and snowing later (fairly hard at the top of the Lac Noir chairlift). Generally yukky. did find some super snow in various spots (bit of brainwork), and here's a pic of the kids having skied down the Valentin (which was revoltingly heavy)