 Poster: A snowHead
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@johnE, last season for one day i decided to do every lift. I will never go on 2300 or st jaques again, lol
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Proper curates egg of a day today. The bowl had the flattest light, so we headed off to Vallandry for the first time this week expecting the same boilerplate that the lower runs at 1800 have had all week. Instead we had a lot of snowfall and decent snow on the runs, probably the best all week. The pisteurs over there deserve a new years bonus for great work.
Weather wise, a fair mount of snow all day with the freezing line swing between 1600-1900m. Turned to pouring rain when we headed back to 1800 at end of day, still raining at 6pm. Hopefully going to stop soon.
The area is definitely in better shape than when we arrived apres le deluge last Friday. Hopefully this is the last of the rain for a while. Shouldn’t be raining this high up at this time of year, feels wrong.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The abrevoir had a live band on last night who were very good. This meant a late night and late setting out today. There was A little rain last night which turned to a little snow higher up. The clouds came in during this morning and at high altitude the visibility was bad.
At lunch time it started to snow quite heavily above 2000m but getting more and more sleaty as you got lower. It was raining heavily at 1600m.
Like many people I quit early.
The resort is emptying a bit this evening and some parking places are becoming available.
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Fri 30-12-22 19:08; edited 1 time in total
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@Libertine, did you even do millerette, vezaile, and tommelet. They are all very obscure. No one has to my knowledge ever done rhonaz
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@johnE, ha, no. was only going for chairs and cabins, but i did forget dahu 
Just had too look up Rhodos! May try again when looking for a motive, will include drags and even magic carpets... not sure it could even be done in a day.
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@Libertine, Rhodos is an emergency lift to be used if lanchette is closed to allow people to return to vallandry without the short uphill walk.
If you add moving carpets to your list then you have to add the rope tows and the escalator in arc 1800.
I think you can be excused those and the mere access lifts such as tommelet (that used to go much higher and service the old “piste de slalom”) and the bucket lift from Nancroix
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@johnE, sorry to be pedantic but you had me really confused Rhonaz gives access to Villaroger
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@stevew, sorry about that. You are of course right. I was rushing to get out skiing. The sun was shining and I was keen to see if there was any fresh snow high up.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@johnE, i start from Peisey, so Lonzagne is a daily occurrence for me
Not as much new snow landed as i'd hoped. The close off piste from Grand Col was pretty sticky and heavy. It still doesn't seem as busy for new year as usual.
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At 1600 the snow was firm first thing so we headed over to 2000. The new snow was good but the area quite busy. The red piste from the top of varet was excellent, one of the best runs of our trip.
Since we were leaving to go home this afternoon we skied until 13:00 then returned to the pack up the apartment . Coming down cachette it felt more like April than December.
Just looking at the cars coming up the hill it looks as if Dutch and Belgians are replacing the French for new year. Most French I spoke to are leaving in the next day or so. The schools are back on Tuesday which explains why the bookings for new year week are lower than normal.
Though we never went across to La plagne the essentials pass proved really useful in jumping lift queues today. On the arpette lift it saved perhaps 10 minutes, but on varet it was probably 20. Very few people are eligible to use the priority lanes.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| johnE wrote: |
The schools are back on Tuesday which explains why the bookings for new year week are lower than normal.
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You just had New Year's week.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Ah back to ye olde discussion as to when a week starts, Sunday or Monday. Since ski resorts usually run Saturday to Saturday and New Year’s Day is tomorrow. I’d say new years day was in the transfer week commencing 31/1/2022. Ie the week with new year in it is next week.
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| johnE wrote: |
| Ah back to ye olde discussion as to when a week starts, Sunday or Monday. Since ski resorts usually run Saturday to Saturday and New Year’s Day is tomorrow. I’d say new years day was in the transfer week commencing 31/1/2022. Ie the week with new year in it is next week. |
For France:
Christmas week this year was 17 to 24
New Years week from 25 to 31
The French typically celebrate Christmas on the 24th evening. They are back at work on the 26th unless they take the week off.
Holidays were not convenient this year, it is true.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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Whats the snow line today, getting a bit sick of this weather now...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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any local updates on conditions? looks ok on webcams but they can be deceiving
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@ukoldschool, when are you going out?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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14th
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Expect a lot of activity between now and then
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Planning to head out to Arcs 1600 on 22nd January - appreciate that current conditions are probably quite poor that low, but hoping that the forecast snows come in between now and then. The predictions are looking ok, with temps dropping, but not sure it will be enough to fix the slopes at 1600 level. We can but hope!
What the coverage at the moment - quite a lot of slopes showing as closed, presumably for coverage/safety reasons. Does it feel like a mega dump is needed, or just a temperature drop and a moderate dump?
Cheers!
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@magic_hat, we were able to ski down to 1600 quite comfortably on New Year's eve and the live cams are showing complete coverage to the bottom of the Combettes lift. Things can get worse or even better in the next two weeks. The forecast for next week looks like a bit more snow.
Compared with what the newspapers were reporting the conditions in Les Arcs weren't bad at all, but most of the blacks had not opened yet for the season. This is not unusual. The runs to 1600 that were closed were Arolles, Gollet and Rouelles. It looked as if no attempt had been made to open them - no piste markers, no bashing etc. Cachette, Combettes, Mont Blanc and Source were all open and fine to ski back on. The pistes down to La Grange are rarely open at the start of the season
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@magic_hat, I came back 27th but believe not a lot has changed since then.
There was plenty of precipitation the previous week but the freezing level was just too high. So in terms of pistes 2500m+ were/are fine but lower down and a lot of off piste (even at altitude) decimated and hence starting from scratch now. So in terms of altitude piste any sort of top up will be good, lower down and off piste needs a dump, freeze to create a base again, and then it goes from there. Forecast is good though.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I skied in LA pre-Christmas, with good conditions (given the lack of snow until early December). I'm back and skied today. The conditions are amazingly good considering the absence of new snow. The piste-management has been excellent, with lots of artificial snow making up for the lack of proper snowfall.
But it is only piste skiing, and - as said above - the black runs are verboten.
This is a pretty unusual start to the season and we need to accept that - here's hoping the forecast of around 50cms in the next 2-3 days comes through ... I'm here for 4 weeks.
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Fairly new to skiing, but why would these conditions cause the blacks to remain closed?
And will the upcoming forecast help the situation?
Heading out on 14th…
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@viciousvulture the blacks, being steeper generally and being slicker, would be pretty gruesome to ski and would not be a priority for the piste management.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
the blacks, being steeper generally and being slicker, would be pretty gruesome to ski and would not be a priority for the piste management.
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Exactly, less than 5% of the skiers venture on to the black pistes (which is why I think they are safer, no idiots to crash into you). They also tend to have the more rocky terrain. The people who know the area ski the runs anyway (I still ski Deux Tetes even though it hasn't actually existed for years) so why waste resources preparing them. Concentrate the resorces on the blues and please 75% of the customers.
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Any suggestions for a starting run for creaky skiiers to find ski-legs again? In Peisey-V just arrived.
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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@JohnOsbo, Take the Peisey lift up then the 2300 (ski out wide to the right before skiing down to the lift) then take grieve and the other blues. Keep lapping until you feel confident to take Renard, Matiez and Barmont. All are very nice runs,but the wide area at the top of the Peisey lift is excellent for the first runs of the decade.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| viciousvulture wrote: |
Fairly new to skiing, but why would these conditions cause the blacks to remain closed?
And will the upcoming forecast help the situation?
Heading out on 14th… |
Pistes are closed because either they don't have enough snow or because of avalanche danger.
Black pistes tend not to have snow cannons (not a priority) and tend to be steeper hence snow does not hold so well, gets skied off quicker. Some are in more gnarly avalanche prone terrain.
There are a lot of good black pistes in Paradiski but conditions do need to be right,
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| JohnOsbo wrote: |
| Any suggestions for a starting run for creaky skiiers to find ski-legs again? In Peisey-V just arrived. |
You are in the right place - some great pistes either side of the VE for the forecast conditions.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Number 1 son stuck in Bourg SM following cancelled LHR flight etc. Any taxi operating locally? All BSM taxis gone
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Quick update. No 1 son found accomm in BSN and arrived safely this morning!
Thanks for tip re starting top of 2300 - we gradually got braver and had a great day. Visibility poor at times but more snow than we expected and no queues.
More snow forecast so looks like we might have a better week than many recently.
Thanks for feedback.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Lovely photographs, I liked the one approaching 1600
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@rob@rar, I’ve always loved those little chalets , were they not self build ideas for locals or something ? they were there when I first went to Les Arcs 43 years ago .
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@Rob Mackley, I agree, they are very lovely. Not sure of their history, but I do like to see them under fresh snow.
Visited the new Arpette restaurant for the first time today. Not impressed with the changes, doubt I’ll be a regular visitor. I used to stop often for a morning coffee or an afternoon beer, and occasionally would have a self-service lunch. With the changes I don’t think I’m part of the customer base they are going for now, so I’ll make the Altiport my favourite pitstop on my way back to my place. Friendly, sensible bar service for drinks and always a good option for a nice Plat du Jour.
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@rob@rar, Found it I knew I read something like it , here’s the description amazing over 50 years old
A link to the article about the architecture, Les Arcs celebrates 50 years , in 2019 . Fascinating read .
https://www.dezeen.com/2019/07/12/les-arcs-architecture-charlotte-perriand-50-years/
Les Chalets Pointus, 1970
These self-contained chalets sit on the outer edge of Les Arc 1600 over a forested slope. Designed by Taillefer, a trained carpenter, Les Chalets Pointus has a simple self-build design.
Employees of the ski resort who lived there all season purchased a plot of land and the plans and built them themselves. All the chalets face south-west, and their rooftop ridges are angled to point to a single spot further up the slope.
Each one has a plan in the shape of an isotoxal star, with triangular facades that create the eponymous pointed roofs. Large windows set into the gables give through-views to the vista of mountains across the valley and triangular terraces supported at their point by a single column provide a sunny place to sit outside.
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