Les 2 Alpes - Winter 2007/8

Just for good measure there's a pic of the Petit Viking nursery slope at about 16.45 showing that although it was warm in the village, there still isn't a problem down here.

Llew, I think there's a relay at the top of the red eggs. All the terrestrial TV is just with normal arials, but of course it's Secam and not PAL so brit TV doesn't work unless it's switchable. (I have Sky you see).

Today started out fab. Very sunny and not all that cold until you got to the Toura area and we did toura and goulet to Cretes in the am with fab snow and fab views - too hot by Cretes so I gave my 2nd jacket to the loo lady to look after. Did the 2nd lesson on cretes with good firm snow all over and then the fog started shifting around which was a bit miz. I took the boys down Petit Diable (good firm snow) and then up to do the hidden valley which was very variable but lovely packed powder in the valley itself. The bumps have shrunk which is a blessing. Afterwards we made the mistake of skiing down Diable and it was white out all down the Petit Diable. Couldn't see the piste markers or anything and I got quite woozy. 2 sundry peeps joined the back of us as they were obviously concerned about finding their way down. Below the Petit we could see again but the Diable was very hard all the way. Not a problem for us but deffo for many of the snowbladers!

the temp has dropped considerably so the colder weather promised seems to be arriving, so hopefully the further snow will also arrive as promised on Fri/Sat/Sun. I wouldn't mind if it didn't on Fri as I have the peeps and the time to go to LG then, but it's not worth it if you can't see, and they're talking about 1/2 metre!

Pic from the Serre Palas looking over and down to the Toura and beyond.

It's been tipping it down all day here and the wind (which was OK in the morning) has got steadily stronger and is now really blasting. It's still snowing like crazy though, but is now almost horizontal!

I tried to take pix on the mountain but the camera was too cold, however I did manage to take one on the way home of the snow on the cars. Bear in mind the Scorpio was clear of snow at 11.30 this morning and I took the pic at about 17.00. My neighbour's car and the van had not been touched and you can really see how much snow has fallen.

Les Cretes had very bad visibility at lunchtime, but we were skiing about 15cms of fresh on the piste and off piste it was much more than that. The wind started to get bad in the afternoon, but they did, in the end, open the face runs so we started off down the Demoiselles (open again) and then dropped into Les Posettes where we skied very deep snow on all 3 sections. Viz was miz, but the snow made up for it. We went back up on the Village chair and then skied Grande Pente through the trees which was huge fun. We could still feel (but not see) the hard bumps under everything, so hopefully if it does keep up for several days as promised those will disappear too.

Well, it started fab but the sky clouded over later int he day and it became very flat light in the afternoon. The snow is good everywhere I've been and no ice, although the Valentin was very hard this pm. I've been down Bellecombe (fab), combe du Thuit red (a bit firm at the very top but then OK), combe du Thuit blue (good all the way) and Grand Couloir today. GC was a bit tough with biggish bumps in very little viz, but the snow was good. The Chemin des Demoiselles was closed today, but is still more or less skiable. The second leg is sort of broken but you can get through though if you're careful. Off now to do certs for the kids and day off tomorrow - hoooorrrrrraaaaaayyyyyy. First one since 2 weeks before Wengen. Pic looking up from the top of the Bellecombe chair. There's a couple of similar ones earlier in the thread, so if anyone can be bothered you can look back to compare the amount of snow around.

Bridgit Jones, Sounds good!

It's been tipping it down with snow all day today. Higher up (Grand Creux and Gours) there was at least 15cms of fresh and it's even been snowing int he village. It hasn't been all that cold though and is sort of sleeting here at the chalet, but that is a bit lower than the main drag. Valentin was better than yesterday, but still not nice - great piles of soggy stuff and hard patches in between. In fact the sog was so soggy that the hard patches were a relief! Nursery slopes perfect for nervous beginners though with rather sticky fresh to slow them down. Viz higher up was not brill, but the distance was OK, just the very flat light which was a problem. The forecast seems to be for snow showers with sunny intervals, which would be nice. If we could see something we could ski more of the off piste, but I dont like taking peeps off when the viz is poor.

Pic of my beginners traversing the top of the Petit Viking nursery slope.