The view from............ Val d'Isere and the Espace Killy

A snowHead

A grey day in Annecy on Saturday.

Clare and I had nice morning out in Annecy on Saturday.... the weather was pretty shocking but we had a nice stroll around looking at the shops etc. It is a nice town with plenty of shops (old and new) and with the canals darting around the town it feels like a mini Venice! I was a happy bunny as I found an Apple store (well of sorts anyway) so eye up my new toy to replace this laptop.

We quite fancy this office chair though!

We drove back through Sevrier and had lunch at the nice Bistro des Ports where the food was awesome but the views obscured by ever worsening weather!

On the way to Chamonix from Annecy (which should have been a nice picturesque drive but the weather spoiled that) we got the news that the mountain guides we had booked for Sunday had had to cancel as they thought the weather was going to be too dodgy. So we had a great evening out instead..... drinks, then a meal out and more drinks..... it was a fun evening.

We woke yesterday to a day of sipping coffee and chilling out in Chamonix. The only part of the day that the weather was any good was first thing..... we had a great view of Mount Blanc and the Augille du Midi from our bedroom window..... and at breakfast time we could just about see the peaks.

.... it was definitely a day for staying indoors.

We arrived back here in Val late last night. The rest of the day (and the next few days) involves lots of packing, cleaning and getting ready to leave for the Summer. Once again it is raining this morning and is forecast to continue on and off for the rest of the week. There is one thing to look forward to and that is a final TDC lunch tomorrow which should be fun.

Apart from all that I shall sign off for the 2012/13 season at this point - ill be back at monthly intervals over the Summer to give updates..... I am sure I shall also bump into some of you at the Hemel Snow Centre as I shall be running some courses there from time to time over the Summer months.

A snowHead

Steve Angus, Thanks for all your great and informative reports. Have a relaxing summer.

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

A day out in Espace Killy. The 'Never Ending Winter'.

Sunday 28 April. Sometimes webcams are very useful. Looking at the webcams of Tignes early yesterday morning I was pleased to see the sun was out above the clouds. Time to get at least one extra days skiing in before my season comes to an end.

Quickly headed up the valley and parked at Tignes Les Brevieres, up the gondola, skis on and was in Tignes Lac by 9.30am.

Decided to do a tour of 'Espace Killy' and see what was still open. By 4.30pm I was back at the car having been to all the stations of Espace Killy, managed a few off piste routes and skied on both Glaciers.

It was good to find that almost all lifts in Espace Killy were still open and the only pistes that seemed to be closed were due to avalanche risk.

The snow off piste in the morning was typical spring conditions, firm with a light covering of fresh snow and good to ski. Especially on the Pissaillas Glacier off piste area (Fornet Glacier) and the Grand Motte Glacier (Tignes Glacier). The off piste route down from the top of Toviere combining a number of different areas to La Daille and from the top of Rocher de Bellevarde to lower down the Face piste also had some good snow mixed in with avalanche debris and tricky sections which had to be crossed with care.

During the morning the sun stayed out and the wind was light. As lunch time arrived, the clouds came in and by 2pm it was snowing lightly and the visibility was poor.

The pistes everywhere early in the day were firm and fun for carving. Despite the change in the weather later in the day the skiing was still ok although it did become soft, slushy and quite heavy lower down.

For anyone thinking of coming out before the 5 May when all lifts close except the Tignes Glacier, if you are prepared for typical spring conditions then it is well worth the effort. I thoroughly enjoyed my day out.

For those interested in the route I took yesterday. Here are the details.

1) Start,Tignes Les Brevieres. Up Gondola, down the piste to Tignes Lac.
2) Up Aeroski. Down from Toviere by various off piste areas to lower down the Orange piste and arriving at la Daille.
3) Up Funival and down from just behind the Olympique Gondola on the Rocher de Bellevarde off piste to lower down the 'Face' Piste and into Val d'Isere.
4) Up the Solaise chair and down on piste to Le Laisinant.
5) Up the Laisinant chair and on piste down to Le Fornet.
6) Up the Fornet cable car and gondola to the 'Fornet Glacier' and Off piste from the top of Cascade chair to the short poma and then the 'Up and Over' chair.
7) Back down to Val d'Isere via the Ladies down hill black piste from the top of Solaise.
Up the Olympique gondola and across to Tignes Val Claret via Follie Douce and the top of Toviere.
9) Up the Grande Motte Funi and down right hand side of Laisse piste as the top of the glacier was now closed. (the visibility was now poor. The weather had closed in for the day.)
10) From the bottom of the Grande Motte Cablecar back to Val Claret on the pistes.
11) Up to the top of the Col des Ves chair then back down the piste natur to the Grattalu chair.
12) Up the Grattalu chair and across to the top of 'L'Aiguille Percee all on piste.
13) From the top of L'Aiguille Percee all the way back to Les Brevieres via the Sache piste. I had hoped to finish my trip by going down the 'Vallon de Sache' off piste valley, but the weather and snow conditions were not safe enough for that. Guess you cannot have everything.

A long, but fun days ski. In this type of weather and snow conditions it is good to have a plan when you set out and even more rewarding when you manage to complete the route. If I have the time I might make one last trip to Tignes before they close all the lifts.

The photos from Sunday will be posted as quickly as I can, but I do have quite a few to catch up with still.

https://www.facebook.com/LesArcsWinter/photos_albums

Hope you have enjoyed following the route I took. It is not that difficult and can be done without the little off piste detours I took. Until next season. Hope you all have a good summer.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Thanks Steve so much for another great season of posts, going to miss login on every night to check up on what's going on. Roll on season 2013-2014. Catch up soon at Hemel say hi to Claire,
Thanks,
Chris

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Steve Angus - Excellent blog, been following it all season. Gives a great impression of day-to-day life in Val d'Isere.
Thanks for all the work.

You'll need to Register first of course.

Steve Angus, thanks so much for excellent posts, they've been really great. I shall keep an eye out for you at Hemel.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Steve Angus, enjoy the summer. It's been very enjoyable again, reading your news. Good to see that even on such a stormy day Lake Annecy can look blue!

After all it is free

Steve Angus, Stunning read and all the more so as I wasn't able to make the slopes this year. More than a hint of jealousy! snowHead

Thanks everyone for your kind messages...... it seems ages ago that the season finished..... anyway it is time for (the first and overdue) the Summer monthly updates.

HOW TIME FLIES

Well it only seems like yesterday that Clare and I were packing everything up and heading back home.

We decided not to go to Paris in the end. Instead we came straight home and have been based in Hungerford - half way between Reading and Swindon ever since. The journey home was pretty painless and the Channel Tunnel crossing was painless as always.

The last month or so has been spent mainly trying to get set up for Summer, finding some work etc. I spent the best part of two weeks running around the south of the country signing up to a few school teaching agencies. Being located on the corner of several counties and living in the middle of nowhere means I need to be prepared to travel a long way (potentially) to pick up some school supply work. Anyway the whole process has, to be honest, been rather long winded and painful. Referencing 10 years of my life and applying for CRB checks in pretty much each county / area I was prepared to work in has been a real pain. Anyway I am just about ready to start work - FINALLY.

Having just got all that sorted out it also looks as if I have managed to get myself some work working on the cricket over the Summer. For the past few years a close friend of mine has been working on the advertising around the sides of the ground e.g. boundary rope, hoarding etc. Finally it looks like the company he works for need someone to do the T20 matches - virtually all of which are during July and August. It is a 90% done deal which will be very exciting. I would be working pretty much every day for about a month going from venue to venue putting up (get this) flashing LED lights around the boundary ropes..... then dismantling after the game and going to the next venue.... a long, tiring but satisfying month! Anyway I am excited about that possibility.... watch this space.

In the meantime I am making myself useful at home (Clare's mother and step-fathers fish farm) by mowing and striming and generally helping out. In this nice weather it is lovely.

Clare has been busy signing up for work and is currently (as she has done a fair amount of before) working on the catering for a new movie that is filming in various locations across the South. That is very sporadic work but later on this month she should be putting her skills with Autistic children back into practice at a local special school which she is excited about.

The two of us were down in Cornwall for Bank Holiday weekend for a wedding which was lovely - the weather was amazing. Despite leaving at silly o'clock we got stuck in AWFUL traffic and missed the actual service...... fear not we were there for the reception! The weather was lovely so can't complain too much.

It sounds like the easy life I am leading at the moment but this is our 'down-time' part of the year........ after this period and we get into solid work we start getting ramped up for the Winter, taking bookings etc and then before we know it it flat out into the Wintery months so we have to make the most of May - August! Anyway I am off to Spain tomorrow for a few days on a 'post-wedding stag do' for an old school friend of mine. We are heading to Bennidorm (of all places) for 4 days of partying and golfing! EEEEK should be fun.

I am about to work out a list of dates to head to the Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead to do some 'off' season clinics and courses and instructor training sessions up there too. Hopefully i'll bump into a few of you up there at some point too. I am hoping both Clare and I will be able to get there perhaps once a month (perhaps more often) through until the Autumn when it will become more regular. Watch this space.

So this thread is all about Val d'Isere..... so (with the help of pictures from Radio Val d'Isere) I shall summarize what has been happening using Radio Val and friends to build the picture!

Still quite a lot of work to do up on the Val glacier to get everything ready for the Summer ski season which is still a month or so away!

The road up from Le Fornet, over the Pont St Charles and up continues to be dug out.... it takes a while to get the road to Italy open when you have that amount of snow to move.

Some lovely days (and some snow showers)

The closing party at the Folie..... was superseded by the mass exodus of people from the resort and the start of the inter-season when it all goes quiet.... locals head away on holiday and things get a lot more relaxed for a month or two.

Not much else to report this month... ill be back sometime in July to give you an update..... until then enjoy the sun!

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Steve Angus, wow, that all sounds very active for 'down-time'! Hope you both enjoy your summer and maybe catch you at Hemel. Always nice to hear your news, thanks for taking the time to post. Very Happy

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Steve Angus, Interesting post, as usual. Hope to spot you at Hemel some time over the summer.

snow reports

Well another month passes by and what a busy month it has been.

Benidorm was great fun. Some lovely weather, wonderful golf and the hotel was just amazing..... not bad for 3 days including flights, hotel (B+B) and golf for £400.

I came straight back from that into working at a Special Educational Needs (SEN) school near Reading. It is a school that homes (many children are residential for obvious reasons) about 70 secondary school aged kids. These kids come from the work of backgrounds in many cases..... broken homes are the tip of the iceberg and molestation, parents in prison for murder, kids addicted to drugs by the age of 11 etc etc etc. As a result the kids were extremely challenging and many had been excluded from mainstream school for everything from violence to truancy..... The class sizes were typically 3-6 with as many adults in the classroom to control them..... teaching and learning was tough from this end too. Anyway I was in there covering for a teacher who had been injured by one of the kids...... a very interesting but tough couple of weeks.

Anyway I was straight out of there into working on the T20 cricket.... essentially I have now been on the road more or less permanently for the last couple of weeks with the ECB. My job is to set up and manage the new flashing LED boundary lights on all the Sky TV televised games of which (apart from when the Ashes tests are on i.e. now) there is pretty much one each day. I then retire to a hotel for the night before driving to the next venue the next morning and repeating once again for the evening game. It is LONG hours and physical work but fun and I am really enjoying being able to see some great cricket! I have already covered 2000 miles in the massive (provided) Merc XLWB Sprinter Van between Yorkshire, Wales, London and Sussex and everywhere inbetween.... off to Durham soon too!

I now have a few days off to enjoy this FANTASTIC weather and enjoy watching the Ashes and Tennis etc.

Clare has been busy doing catering work around the place as well as helping out in her mothers interior decorating business and generally being able to enjoy some down time as well as this weather.

However we should both be on the road up to Hemel soon as I start my first Hemel Snow Centre training weekend next weekend..... so see some of you there if you are around!

In Val d'Isere things have being pretty busy as usual. Thank you as always to Radio Val d'Isere for providing the info and photos:

The Summer skiing on the Val glacier gets going.

The road up and over the Col d'Iseran and down towards Italy opens up

Just because the snow has melted it does not mean the action in the form of walking and climbing does not continue.... however sometimes people still get into trouble and indeed someone died climbing the Grand Sassiere recently too and the PGHM were called in to help with the rescue!

Likewise the dangers exist in town too..... someone unfortunately fell to their death from a third floor window in the Richards building in town too!

But it is not all doom and gloom... the fishing season on the Lac Ouillette has started.

Or if you want to pop over to Tignes the wonderful new leisure center has opened there.

Or try to ski the Pisteurs Couloir in July!

.... or (finally) take the time to review possible locations for the planned new Borsat Express chairlift.

Until next months folks.... don't melt in this heat!

Cheers Steve Angus! We're off to our place in Tignes in 5 days' time Very Happy

. Can't wait - the glacier is looking excellent and we're taking the mountain bikes too. Aiming to spend a few days in Val Thorens (for some 3Vs biking) as well.

You know it makes sense.

Any news on the new Solaise lift? Is that going in this summer?

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

Great update Steve, glad you and Clare are keeping busy. It's strange to think of skiing in this heat!

The ski season seems so far away, I'm off on my summer hol on Sat.

A snowHead

amjbrown - no news on the Solaise lift - afaik nothing is going in Val wise this Summer new lift wise at all. I could be wrong though!

CANT BELIEVE IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE MY LAST UPDATE - APOLOGIES for being slack

What a busy few weeks it has been at this end. So since my last update on the 13th July I have spent much of my time working on the cricket. The weather has (on the whole) been lovely - it seemed as if they hot spell went on for weeks on end - it was lovely. I have travelled from corner to corner of the country and covered about 5000 miles on the road since my last update. I have seen some pretty good T20 cricket (and some less impressive stuff too). Now the Ashes tests have finished it will be the ODI's and the iT20's this week which I will be working - those will be exciting!

Finals weekend up in Edgbaston was a lot of fun. The weather was not perfect but it was fun. The inter county mascot race was so funny!

I have also managed to do a couple of weekends at The Snow Centre coaching..... its nice to get back on the snow. It is weird this Summer not being on snow full time as the last 10 years or so I have hardly stopped skiing in the Summer.

In fact I will be arranging another 4 weekends when I will be at The Snow Centre before we head back to France in early November:
14th and 15th September
28th and 29th September
5th and 6th October
and 19th and 20th October

These half day sessions are a great warm up before the Winter, get you back in the game and are great value for money. Please PM me if you want any more info!

Anyway plug over.

Now that the Summer is passing by and schools are going back I shall also be doing a little supply teaching in the Autumn Term and as said previously it will only be another couple of months before we pack up to head back to Val!

Clare has been very busy working at a special autistic school over the last few weeks which has been a challenge but she has enjoyed it..... her background many years ago was actually working with people with Autism so it is right up her alley!

Can you believe that we are about to celebrate our first anniversary next weekend.... hopefully Ill be able to show some photos of the plans we have for the celebrations next time.

As always Val d'Isere and Tignes have been busy over the last few weeks. The height of the school Summer holidays does result in a fair few people flocking to the mountains for various things..... and of course life goes on as normal in the mountains!

As always thanks to Radio Val d'Isere for providing the photos and information as I do my Monthly Resort Roundup.

Some of the usual Summer activities in the mountains...... running....

.... and fishing but a few nasty incidents like....

...small fires in the roof area of the base building for the La Daille Telecabine!

You would never know there is a full size rugby pitch up the Manchet Valley that is used a lot over the Summer would you!

Name that piste? (in the Winter of course).... you may well not have skied it if you have been to Val but you will definitely have seen it!

Lots of fun for the kids in the Summer time too!

A paraglider gets it a little wrong and lands in a tree!

Glorious flowers for nature lovers too!

The dammed lake has fully refilled after the works on the dam wall were completed.

Thats about it folks..... until next month take care of yourselves.

A snowHead

Nice update Steve, hope you're having a great summer! The snowy slopes seem months away..

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

Hi Steve,
Is the piste Joseray where it joins the Face?

You need to Login to know who's really who.

LAST UPDATE before heading back to Val d'Isere in a few weeks time

Yes Chris ski H - spot on!

So another month (and a bit) whizzes by. It has been a very busy month (as usual). The first couple of weeks of September were quiet - the cricket was over and although schools had gone back there was little supply teaching in schools to be had as teachers were yet to come down ill or anything. I used the time to do some selling on ebay. The second half of September has been much busier.

Last week and the coming week I am travelling around the country visiting various shopping centres and libraries etc to erect big displays to encourage people to stop smoking as part of the Stoptober campaign. Anyway it has meant many thousand more miles on the road going from places as far and wide as Newcastle, Cardiff and Kent - so a lot more travelling.... but good fun.

I have also been doing a little supply teaching here and there in schools too which has kept it all varied.

Packed around all that I have been to The Snow Centre a few times too..... in actual fact I still have some more sessions on the go..... one more session tomorrow and then another on the 19th October. £60 pp for a half day session with content individualised. Please PM if you want more information.

Clare has been working hard at the special needs school. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary (blimey a whole year has passed) by going for dinner at a lovely restaurant near Newbury called the Crab which was AMAZING. We are now counting down the days until we return to Val d'Isere - we plan to be back in town by about the 1st / 2nd November. We will only be there for a couple of days before we go to Annecy for an intensive French language course. Shortly after that it will be the start of Winter.

We have been keeping an eye on the weather and conditions out there and there have been several early falls of snow already so things are looking good.

Not much else to report...... our new vehicle - the 9 seater, has yet to arrive as there was a delay from the factory so hopefully I will have some nice pics to post when we get back to Val. Incidentally I aim to start my daily reports in about 5/6 weeks time direct and daily from Val d'Isere.... I am hoping that everyone will enjoy them once again!

One of the first jobs we will have to do when we get back out is to put our studio apartment that we own on the market.... we plan for the 2014/15 season to move into the bigger place we have (that we currently rent out week by week). We will then be looking to buy another place to start renting out from the season after that..... all in all exciting times ahead.

Meanwhile back in France things have been moving into Autumn like they have been doing back here. The two big pieces of news is that the new Toviere Express (replacing the Aeroski) is nearly complete AND, sadly, the Winter X Games for Tignes, due to take place in March (as has happened the last few years) has been cancelled. Due to financial reasons on the X Games organisers part it must be added - not on the part of Tignes. A large piece of bad news!

Anyway as normal I shall post some pictures to summarise the last month or so in the Espace Killy as follows:

Some late Summer sporting action...

.... as the weather builds to give the first few dumps of snow...

Whilst one of the very long term residents of Val d'Isere... the head of the Bonnevie family passes away.

But a new generation moves into the primary school as the new academic year starts.

But a few people still get it wrong and end up in the lake!!!!!!!!

..... and the centre of town.

But the snow keeps on coming and lays a good base for the Winter ahead.

But there was just enough time to do some flood limitation work up at Laisenant.

.... and there has been enough time to do repair work on the paravalanche barrier.

The finishing touches are being applied to the new La Toviere / Aeroski replacement gondola.

...... as always thanks to colleagues out there at the moment (namily Lena and James from TDC) for supplying the pics as well as Radio Val d'Isere.

Oh and finally I forgot to say I tried out (it is a lot harder than it looks) the Skiplex rolling carpet ski slope in Reading to review it for them. WELL WORTH A GO I CAN ASSURE YOU. Really good for technique development as well as cardiac fitness!!!

Until next month.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Steve Angus, Interesting news and pictures snowHead

You'll need to Register first of course.

Thanks Steve - can't wait for the season and the daily reports to resume!

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

WE'RE BACK.... and it's dumping!

Well yes we got back to Val d'Isere last week and have been in Annecy for the past week trying to improve our French at a language school there. I won't go into (boring) details but it was not the most successful of things to do. Basically large classes and over-priced coupled with to much assumption about current abilities!

Anyway we got back to Val for proper on Friday evening and have watched the snow fall and fall for pretty much the last 24 hours non-stop.

I popped out earlier on and this is what it looks like out there!

Yes the snow-ploughs are already working non-stop to clear the roads..... even though the place is a relative ghost town still (for a couple more weeks at least!)

There was a few days after it initially snowed that I can share with you from Radio Val d'Isere.

Anyway what is new here in town...

Well they are changing the one way / traffic system around town for this season - not much of a change but worth noting:

There has been quite a lot of building work (as always) this Winter - will try and get some nice photos when I next get out. However it would seem as if the Cygnaski has hardly changed at all! Perhaps next Winter the planned changes will materialise but for now apart from a little bit of internal and cosmetic work things don't seem to have moved on.

Not much else to report for today..... don't want to tell all the news in one go otherwise what will I write about for the next few weeks before the season starts.

Clare is well and we are both looking forward to the start of the season which is now only a couple of weeks away. We are aiming to get up on the Grand Motte to get some skiing in (especially with all this powder) before the season gets going so it should be exciting!

So as usual I will be aiming to go a daily report from now through to late April here on SH's and hope to have as many of you along for the ride as possible!

After all it is free

Great photos. Looking forward to your reports. Have a good season.

Steve Angus, Thanks for posting - really looking forward to our trip et the end of November snowHead

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

I love reading your reports. Are you going to start a new thread for the new ski season?

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Ricklovesthepowder, why shoudl he start a new thread? this one isn't dated

snow reports

Steve Angus, glad you're back! Thanks for the updates, I've really missed this thread.

It's wonderful to see Val looking so snowy before the season even starts.

Good luck with all your pre-season prep!

Have a great season, always good to read your updates each morning!

You know it makes sense.

Those pics are great. Make me want to be there. Looking forward to the daily updates and pictures.

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

Whatever snowdance you're doing to lure the White Gods out of their slumber seems to be working, so keep it up!

A snowHead

BLOOMING COMPUTERS

Well the weather was much brighter today and the 30cm of snow that had fallen yesterday had been wind blown overnight into some large drifts.

Anyway the ploughs had done a good job but this is the first time that I have experienced so much snow this early on the season (which has not officially started yet as you will all know)..... it holds a good season I hope!

Anyway today was mostly taken up having arguments with the computer.... it decided that it needed a vital new operating system upgrade so spent 3 hours downloading, a further hour installing and now I have spent another couple of hours trying to find my way around this new Apple operating system which is pretty sexy to be honest..... so all in all I have had a pretty unproductive day!

Clare and I are heading off for a ski on the Motte tomorrow so hopefully will have some nice photos to show you all tomorrow evening.

Whilst I am blogging I think there is no time like the present to let everyone know that there will be a junior 'Angus' appearing on the horizon in mid May next year as Clare is pregnant. She plans to teach until about Feb half term when it will get too dangerous / unfeasible to teach anymore..... we are both thrilled and excited to become parents for the first time!

Anyway back to Val d'isere and local news.... of course it was a bank holiday here today as the 11th November is always a BH here in France whether or not it falls on a Sunday or not. So not much was happening around town. However there are obviously a few builders who are desperate to complete their works before the Winter officially starts as there were a couple of cranes in action.

A few builders at work (for those who are regular readers of this blog you will remember me posting a similar photo on about the same day last year here on this thread - TBH not much is different in the two pics apart from the fact that there is snow on the ground in todays pic!)

A little bit of work has been done on the building by the main bus station but not much!

XV bar has a new deck outside and the Canyon / Tocade area outside has been revamped and increased in size to include a dining area - should look nice - I am guessing that Tocade has been totally swelled up by the Canyon restaurant this season!

Thanks everyone for the 'welcome back message' - much appreciated. Yes I will be here on this thread daily giving you all the info from Val and Tignes.

OK dinner time - starving all this laptop work!

A snowHead

Clare & Steve......CONGRATULATIONS Very Happy

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

Great to have your posts back, and congratulations to you and Clare on your good news! Very Happy

You need to Login to know who's really who.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Great to have you back Steve - i very rarely comment but always read your posts/blogs, often drooling over the photos and fun stories ! Congrats on your news.

Olly

You'll need to Register first of course.

Congratulations. Great news. snowHead

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Steve Angus, Congratulations Steve & Clare snowHead

After all it is free

Congratulations, exciting time ahead! Have a great season!

Steve Angus, Congratulations from myself Chris, Katie and Cameron. Let us know if Clare has any cravings for UK things and we can bring them out the beginning of Feb and again the 1st week of April if she is still in resort.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Hi Steve

Thanks for this thread, which I've just discovered and am relating avidly to my husband - we will be back in Val just after Christmas and then again in January so it's great to see the snow and hear the lift news. Friends of ours have been rushing to get their chalet sorted too!

I hope you don't mind me asking - do you know if the Monsieur Bonnevie who died was the father of Gerard Bonnevie who owns and runs the slalom next to the Borsat lift? I know he was in a care home but not in Val d'Isere, although he lived in Val all his life. I know there are a few Bonnevie households so perhaps he is one of the Le Fornet families.

Cheers, and congrats on your own news of course!

V

Help!!

The view from............ Val d'Isere and the Espace Killy

snowHeads Forum Index >>> Snow Reports - weather - snow conditions