Les 2 Alpes - Winter 2007/8

Curtains, I'll have to look in the diary, but a free day sounds a bit unlikely tbh! Actually just looked and lessons every day that week - very sorry!

It was much warmer again today (hooray), for the second day in a row I didn't feel cold - I have a stinking one mind you! I didn't even put my bootheaters on! Mr BlizT was ill and had to cancel his lesson poor chap, but I made good use of the time changing the spark plugs for scorpy. Hopefully they'll both feel better tomorrow. I'm sure there's lots of christmas stuff going on in the town, but in my little hideout it's just nice and quiet.

I took a pic from just below the trees on the Grande Pente, which was fab to ski today. It was just really nice quality skier pisted snow - not totally packed and not yet mogulled. I looked towards where I took yesterday's pic and have marked the spot with a red blob.

Very happy Christmas to you all.

Helen Beaumont, Nick L, Curtains, thanks. It was a good day again today, not quite as sunny and warm as the last couple, but more than acceptable. I finished up taking BlizT down the Grande Pente which still had fabulous snow on it. she was back on skis today and seemed to enjoy it! I nearly forgot to take a picture, but just snapped one whilst walking home of the last sun on the Tete Moute at the top of the Super Diable. If you look carefully you can see little black dots (skiers) all over the diable run.

Well here's a photo from today looking up the hill from the terrace of the Patache restaurant at the Cretes. It was again quite chilly but sunny all day, the snow is still good, but there are the odd bare patches appearing on the off piste descents of the Face - not much but blades of grass poking out here and there. there are also the odd hard patch appearing, but it's not ice yet. Locals seem to think that it's going to snow tomorrow night and Thursday and Friday, which will cheer things up no end.

I hear it was lively in the town last night - rumour has it that a large group of italian youths chased the police around a bit!! I didn't hear anything down here though - it was great!!!

Helen Beaumont, Yes it was and they did!

Ray Zorro, Thanks, but it's going to snow with you isn't it? Said so ont he BBC this morning.

It was sunny this morning and not too cold - well, it was cold but not extraordinary. Went up to the glacier and found lovely snow on the Roche Mantel and Signal, and had a high speed run down tot he cretes after the first lesson. didn't find one single patch of hard stuff, which considering I was skiing for speed and to avoid others was pretty good. Snow on the Cretes was good, but it got really cold and quite cloudy inthe afternoon. I had no toes left at 16.30 when I had my first run down Sapins on the way home. the snow was quite good most of the way except for int he trees where it was pretty hard and a bit patchy. It would have been fine except for some very dodgy skiers and snowboarders who mobbed me! Below the trees was good to the side of the piste, and I had an 'interesting' descent onto the top of the nursery slopes.

I've bought a new pair of boot heater batteries so I expect to have warmer feet from now on.

the pic is from Sapins just above the trees looking towards the centre and Mont de Lans end of town at about 16.45.

In the end the amount of snow that actually fell today has been a bit disappointing. It was only about 5 cms at 2,400m - bah! Horrid, cold and flat light day. Evil wind high up so the lifts were only running to 2,900m (top of the Lac noir chairlift). Anyway, it's set to carry on for a bit, so we can all hope that more will actually fall out of the sky! Here's a pic I took from the path looking over the red top part of the Thuit which did have nice snow on it. Stupid calling it red though - the first few metres are almost vertical and although it does shelve out near the bottom, I reckon it would be classed black in many places (certainly in the 3V!)

Kramer, Give me a bell when you're in.

tommy10pages, If you fancy a drink apres ski one day give me a ring - number on each page of the website and you can find me at the tourist office! There are a few s around.

tommy10pages, chalance needs to be treated with serious respect - lots of rocks and a high chance that if you hit one you might head but the next one! Also a tendency to avalanche, but if your pal checks with the ski patrol .... don't know about powder stashes though as the wind has been evil for the last 2 days, everything shut high up, and the chances of it being powder rather than windblown crust are fairly remote. Keep your fingers crossed for some more snow over the weekend.

It was pretty vile again today, although it was snowing quite hard at 2,600m and the wind wasn't quite as bad as yesterday. That meant that all the peeps were stuck on the lower slopes and it was pretty packed. The face was good though, and I took Ger and his mates down Grande Pente (fab snow), and Chalky down l'Y later which was also good. that was better at the sides, in the middle there were a few bumps and some hardpack.

I have got a pic looking up the Cretes at around lunchtime FWIW!

We all got together for a drink apres ski, which was lively as it included all of Ger's mates and the non-snowheads who skied with me + the R32s etc. Extremely jolly!