Les 2 Alpes, Autumn interseason & winter 2009/10

Sorry about the quality but I had to use the phone.

vile day today. Heavy rain int he morning and although it cleared mostly later, it did continue to rain intermittently all day. the snow, of course, got heavier and heavier throughout the day, until it was really hard work by 16.00. Hopefully it will have to improve later in the week. progress report on the Cautious to Confirdent thread.

Avalanches all over - huge ones, mostly provoked but not all I think. Huge rumbles and half the mountainside is now naked! Look at the pic of the SW facing wall of the Fee (bigger pic on my blog at www.easiski.com/blog1 )

Today was an odd sort of day. It started dull but relatively clear and the fog then rolled up the mountainside fromt he valley and ... stayed. At some times it was foggy all the way to the top and at other times it was clearer in patches, however wherever we went it became foggy the minute we got there! The snow on the Cretes was truly awful by mid-morning, although there was still good snow above 2,600m. It's been warm and not at all windy which is a blessing. We're looking forward to better weather tomorrow.

The excitement of the day (if you can call it that) was that all the walls of snow started to avalanche all over the various pistes so they closed lots of the mountain including the way down from the Bellecombe lift to the Cretes. this caused serious confusion and congestion at 16.00 when hoards of skiers were trying to get down the mountain. We managed to continue however, finally getting off the mountain with Richard E, Mrs Sack the Juggler and their friend Mark at 18.00. I started at 09.00 this morning.

Pic looking down the Valentin from the top at close to 6 in one clear moment.

Red Leon, I wouldn't have dared - it scares me!

Today was soooo wierd! Rain, then heavy snow + blizzard conditions on the Cretes, eventually more rain in the village and then more snow.

First thing it was really quite icy on the Cretes and all around there. I have decided that the Zags must me dead - I was unable to get any sort of grip regardless of what I did, or what position I adopted. It was unpleasantly windy at this point and nothing was running above this level ... then we got thick fog! When we started with the 12.00 group, just as we got on the Petit Cretes chair it became a gale with major horizontal snow - ugh! We beat a retreat down the Belle Etoile chairlift to the village. This, I should add, was with very competent skiers.

Once down it was much better so we skied Mont de Lans (in photo) and then down the Cote which is the link run between the two sides. We did find some really nice snow around here, although soft and slushy and here the Zags were quite happy. After this we returned to the centre of the village and home to hot baths. Most of us were pretty wet by then.

I got home in 4" snow on the road at 15.00, and when I went back out at 17.00 there was none! At 18.00 and thereafter it was snowing heavily again. Will wait and see for tomorrow.

It snowed nearly all day today, but the wind had dropped and the snow was of the dry variety so it was a much better day. Fresh snow all over, although very heavy and windcrusted in some places - lots of fun watching peeps fall over in it while going up chairlifts. While the sun did nearly come out for about an hour in the afternoon, and did actually come out as soon as skiing was over, for the most part the visibility was pretty poor. Toura level, Cretes and Combe du Thuit area were all good today, although the Diable had some quite large icy patches.
Pic shows the viz in the Combe du Thuit at lunchtime!!

As you'll have seen from R32's post, it dumped hugely last night. the pistes were off piste, and the off piste was either great (top of the Diable under the Vallons chair) or unskiable (top of the Thuit where I got stuck more than once!) Mostly it was a dull day, the snow stopped quite early on, but there was a lot of flat light and fog around all day. Also lots of horrid bumps everywhere on piste which made learning difficult for the students. At least everyone did well, and the forecast is better for tomorrow.

Pic shows a small body in the Deversoir being supervised by his lesson pal!

Hot and muggy today but without any sun. It did brighten up occasionally, but on the whole it was a dull day with really grotty, sludgy snow on all the lower half of the mountain.

There were avalanches around all the walls of the lower paths and Route du Thuit, Liaison Sea-Grand Nord, Grand Couloir and Super Diable were all closed. This meant that we had to return to the Cretes either via the Gours or the Thuit which was a pain.

Pic of pretty fog in the Venosc valley this morning