Tignes and the Espace Killy 2017/18 (Closed - No more posts please!)

A snowHead

Or they are working for Altiplus who do a lot of snow clearing and employ ski instructors on a casual basis

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Well I suppose I could misquote Donna Summer "Enough is Enough". We had and 30cm or so in the villages overnight and it has snowed moderately or heavily all day, and will continue to do so at altitude for another 24 hours or so. The gales did abate from lunchtime though. The pisteurs have been blasting all day and they did manage to get enough lifts open to serve those mad enough to go out. A bedraggled individual that has just dripped his way into my apartment reports reasonable snow all over, not powder but skiable.

The snow will continue through the night but the temperature is going to rise rapidly tonight and the snowline will rise to 2000m making it a tad miserable in the villages. Tomorrow will also be mild with gusty winds and a snowline of averaging 2200m so it might be a bit trying in the morning as we wait for the pisteurs to deal with wind blown snow and the added complication of rain at lower levels. The temperature will drop mid afternoon meaning the snowline will go back to where it belongs. The snow will finally cease around midnight tomorrow and Tuesday should be a very good day with sunshine and mild temperatures, there may be the odd cloud bothering the peaks. Wednesday looks glorious - bluebird and very mild, the fresh snow will settle quickly. Thursday will start sunny, but cloud will progressively cover the sky, yes you guessed it more snow is on the way for the end of the week.

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I did a few laps of the Solaise TC this afternoon. For those that stayed indoors you were not missing much. Heavy snow and very crowded piste.

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Official Meteo France Avalanche Bulletin just come out - Risk 5 tomorrow. Another slow day....

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Val d’isere Have announced that the road to BSM is closed from 2200 till 0700. Does anyone know if it’s the same for Tignes to BSM?

After all it is free

@hodgkins, It does sound that way from the Radio Val twitter account:

"#valdisere : Par décision du président du conseil départementale sur demande du préfet de la Savoie, la route entre Val d'Isère/@TignesOfficiel et Bourg St Maurice sera fermée à partir de 22h. Pas de bus scolaire évidemment en direction de la vallée demain matin."

@hodgkins, from Radio Tignes (Google Translation):

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Well,we got here. In fact having been prevailed upon to upgrade the rental car to a 4x4 with winter tyres we sailed up the road from Bourg at around 3 pm, passing dozens of less fortunate souls trying to get chains on. Truth to tell I quite enjoyed the drive. We are now holed up at the Melezes in Boisses waiting to see what the morning will bring. As of right now it's still snowing but it may well turn to rain overnight. Mind you the forecast was for heavy rain on the drive up but by Bourg it was driving snow.

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April is going to be awesome in EK snowHead

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We were stuck in albertville last night because the road to fornet was shut. Now just waiting to hear news really although as Road is still shut up to val it's just a waiting game.

The road to Fornet is not expected to open today. They need to be able to fly a helicopter to blast and visibility is not going to be good enough today.

You know it makes sense.

Roads just opened to Val, forecast for Tignes is 10AM. Many areas of Tignes are confined to buildings at the moment. The pisteurs have been concentrating on the roads so I suspect it will be a while before any lifts of significance open. Avi risk 5/5. Its now heavy wet snow, the balcony (after clearance work!) is wet.

Pity the poor woman from Val who went into labour in the middle of the night. She arrived in Bourg (in time) courtesy of a convoy set up by the fire brigade. Bravo chaps!

Meanwhile a 25 year old British clown had a lucky escape in Le Fornet at 5am , he was lost with only light clothing and no hat so shouted for help. Luckily a couple with an open bedroom window heard him and called the authorities who rescued him from the 'locked down' village on the wrong side of the river in the avalanche zone. It would appear a drink had been taken.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

So far the threat of rain lower down has not materialised with 25 plus cm of new snow on the car since I parked it at around 4pm yesterday. That's in upper Boisses so I suppose at about 1850m. Literally nothing open so far. Expecting more news at noon.

A snowHead

>>clown

I had delightful visions of a chap with over-sized shoes and crosses painted on his face for a moment. Sadly, probably not.

A snowHead

Road Alert:

The road down the valley (below the dam) will be shut from 3pm to 8pm at least. This will isolate bot Val and Tignes.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Well,
How very pleasant and helpful the people in lift office have been sorting my prolongnation to next Sunday!
They gave me 3 days gratis with no form filling for the lockdown days and showed me how to claim online for a fourth day when less than 50% of lifts were open!
So the carte neige was worth it!!
Rather had the skiing but this has eased the pain👍

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Did some laps of Funival today - Snow was very heavy and about boot high off the side of the piste- all in all not great skiing - nice lunch at folie douce - hopefully snow quality better higher up when it opens tomorrow. Has just finally stopped snowing.

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It was only the village lifts open in Tignes after a day of colossal effort from all the resort staff to keep is safe. With road closures and blasting in abundance they deserve a huge round of applause. Not surprisingly Meteo Mike remained indoors but all reports suggest the snow is heavy, which is not a surprise given the temperatures and the rain at lower levels. So today's song is more of a plea, yes its Eric and Ernie with:

Bring me sunshine
In your smile
Bring me laughter
All the while
In this world where we live
There should be more POW!!!

And, you know what that's what we are going to get (well maybe not the Pow below 2700m). The snow/rain will continue until the small hours when the sky will clear and the moon will appear. Tomorrow will be sunny with maybe the odd cloud on the peaks and quite mild for January, the light winds will mean its going to be a pleasant day. Wednesday looks even better, bluebird, light winds and warm. A day for skiing on perfect pistes and having a beer on the terrace (or searching n high for lighter snow). Thursday will feel cooler with a veiled sky and strong winds before snow returns on Friday, it will be chilly but there should be a sunny spell or two. Light snow will continue into early Saturday before clearing up for, hopefully, a quiet transfer day.

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Is that a dolphin leaping out of the snow in the pic of the ESFers digging out the poubelles?

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After all it is free

Radio Val just announced that the official snowfall for this winter so far is 6.09 metres. That is more snowfall than the entire seasons totals for 18 of the last 27 years Shocked

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@chocksaway, 😮 that is truly incredible and to be here to see it this week is fab and the work the lifters, pisters, security guys etc etc are doing to keep us safe is amazing

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Just arrived in Tignes. Incredible amount of snow really, never seen anything like it. Does anyone know how far up the rain went today? Driving up it turned to snow at approx. 1800m (although hard to tell as it was very light by that point). Doesn't seem wet at Le Lac, though.

Hoping there may at least be somewhere sheltered in these mountains that holds some powder!

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Interesting day. With so little open Bogus Junior and I decided there was no point trying to ski and when the bus started to run from Boisses we took it up to Lac for a bit of a mooch about. We were enjoying a refreshment in the Loop Bar ar 2.30 when we got word of the road closure. Rushed back to the bus stop to no avail. A bus came in at 3.00pm but immediately put up its Fin de Service lights. So we were stuck there for another five hours. We made good use of the time in various establishments before joining the crowd at the bus stop just before eight. It was more than an hour before the road actually opened and a bus pulled in to the joy of sixty or so exiles from down the hill. Somehow pretty much everyone crammed on board for an exciting ride down to 1800. After that, back up to Boisses only to find a two metre high rampart of snow across the road. The bus could go no further of course so the survivors had to scale the snowy barricade and cover the last hundred metres on foot. All in all our trip to Carrefour and to book a lesson at Evo2 had taken just about eight hours. Still, tomorrow is another day.

@Bogusman, Shocked

You know it makes sense.

@Bogusman, Shocked

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@Bogusman, Shocked

A snowHead

You lucky people. Blue sky I do spy on the webcams.
Enjoy and stay safe👍

A snowHead

Well as Morecambe and Wise pulled it off for us today its really only fair to quote another of their lesser known songs:

Walking In the Sunshine, sing a little sunshine song,
Put a smile upon your face as if there's nothing wrong

Yes we awoke to a bit of mist that rapidly cleared and left us with virtually unbroken blue skies, light breezes and mild temperatures. And really there was nothing wrong, it wasn't the lightest of powder days but when you take into account the Herculean effort by all in the resort to get things open there was n cause for complaint. There were some large avalanches about and deliberate triggering around the Grande Motte area went on all day. Oh and for those that were doubting why areas such as the snow front in Brevieres were out of bounds here's a pic of the avalanche that {edit} was triggered by the pisteurs {edit ends}this morning:

The trickiest thing this morning was dodging the queues as things opened progressively so we did a number of laps of Palafour to the sides of the pistes, then moved on to do the same around Aiguille Rouge and then Grattalu. Off piste was a real mix from medium weight powder, to wind pack to sastrugi (not yet frozen luckily), and where the early sun had softened the surface we had spring like snow that rapidly refroze with a crust - eek! The pistes were excellent to start with but soon bumped up into quite mogully nightmares for the intermediates. that will be fixed over night - fear not. All in all there was a lot of fun to be had as shown by the all action hero below:

Timings on the weather have changed a bit since yesterday, but tomorrow will be fab, blue skies, sunshine, light winds and mild temperatures and more runs will be open! Thursday looks like it will now be cloudy all day with the odd flocon or two in the afternoon and evening. A stiff breeze will develop in the afternoon, it will be markedly chillier than tomorrow. Friday will be a day of snow, cloud and wind before things improve on Saturday with fluffy clouds and sunny periods and maybe the odd light snow shower in the early part of the day. Currently we are expecting Sunday to be a nice day with sunny periods and some clouds on the peaks.

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And today was indeed another day. Spent the morning withBogus Junior who is far better on both skis and board than i could ever hope to be. He's very good about waiting for me and amusing himself off the side of the piste while I catch up. He's decided to board this week and was enjoying the vast amounts of new snow. Just before lunch time we tried to get back from Val Claret to Lac via Tichot, Gratalu and Grand Huit but Grand Huit was closed and the choice was back up Merles to Val Claret or hike across to the Palafour run. Junior trains in a boxing gym every day and plays rugby at the weekend and was wearing snowboard boots. I am 35 years older, don't train more than a couple of times a week,am recovering from the flu and was in ski boots. Who do you think managed better?I was well and truly wiped out by the time we got down to the square where we met Mrs B and Little Miss Bogus. Little Miss B doesn't recogise the existance of any hour before noon so was fresh and newly risen. I spent the afternoon with her. We did a few laps of Rosset before bussing to Val Claret where I intended to take Fresse over to the tranquil valley. Fresse being closed all day scuppered that plan so we lapped Bollin many times, interrupted only by the world's most expensive coffee and hot chocolate in Grizzley's.

A very good day in case you were wondering.

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I'm out for 4 days from Saturday morning.

I have ordered 50cm on Friday and blue skies from Saturday onwards. Smile

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Today was an immense day, slopes were quieter because most runs were open and we were treated to glorious sunshine and warm temperatures. It doesnt get much better!

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Had a bit of a false start over at Le Fornet today - the (off piste) snow was very variable and wind affected. Made up for it with fantastic descents of Table d'Orientation Couloir and Pisteurs Couloir. The latter in particular was in excellent condition.

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Thanks to an Evo2 full on day I can't think of song title today. So I will refer to my favourite weather forecaster from the Fast Show: Scorchio! It was more like mid March today, blue skies sunshine and temperatures well above zero, there was just a hint of very thin cloud as I crawled up our road as the sun dipped behind the Chardonnet. The pistes as you would expect were in excellent condition, they did bump up a little. But 95% of today was off piste where the conditions were very variable from compacted powder in high north facing and little used slopes to spring snow which then froze over later in the day leaving a crust to trip you up. You also had to have your spring avalanche head on, there are a number of reptations (or fish mouths in the words of our instructor) appearing where the snow is slipping down the mountain and slips triggered by the warming of the rocks. We did some technique work around Grattalu and then progressed to the Tour de Charvet, great snow but spring like conditions in the gorge. We opened the Jardins du Borsa whilst lunch settled and then down Cairn into Val D'Isere. We opted for the side entrance to the north face of Borsat as the wind has completely stripped the snow from the top and scree running in ski boots was not for us. We returned home down skiers left of Trolles (nice snow in the shade there). Here's Tigski in Charvet:

And the weather, the cloud will thicken but we may have a milky sky for a couple of hours in the morning. The cloud will thicken to leave a grey day. It will feel a bit cooler under the cloud and there will be a decent breeze from village level upwards. Friday will be cold windy and snowy, the snow won't be that heavy but a decent top up none the less. Saturday looks like a day of sunny periods (and quiet slopes!!), maybe a stiff breeze in the afternoon. It will warm up a bit on Sunday, a few clouds in the morning but a sunny afternoon. Monday should be a bluebird.

We had a great day today....just went all over both resorts, mainly on piste just a great, great day!

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The temperature reading on the bottom of the Olympique bubble showed 14° at around 1130! Face was a nightmare of a crowded mogul field. I could have handled the moguls or the crowd, but both? I have seldom felt as wiped out as when I caught up with Bogus Junior in the Sun Bar. Other than that it was a lovely day, finished by skiing down to Boisses with Little Miss Bogus, the first time she has done that. On the subject of Boisses, it really is time to increase the frequency of the Boisses shuttle bus, especially when both Boisses and Sache bubbles are opening late. The bus fills up at 1800 and probably 20 people failed to squeeze on board at Boisses. All the new development at 1800 is undoubtedly a good thing but it is definitely making life more difficult for old-school Boisses-ites.

Help!!

Tignes and the Espace Killy 2017/18 (Closed - No more posts please!)

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