SnowSlider - Blogging From the mountains by ise

Today’s my birthday So, as a perfect gift we got a surreal amount of snow overnight. It might also be about the last time we ski in the Grand Massif for a while as we’re selling our apartment there.

There’s been an incredible amount of snow fallen in just a few hours overnight. It’s really not at all unusual to get some late season snow but I really can’t recall the last time we got so much at such a low altitude.

Watching French TV last night there were reports of some chaos on the autoroute between Lyon and Grenoble but I was still pretty surprised to see so much snow overnight.

Below 1500m the snow was a little heavy but above it was incredibly good.

Our flat is at around 1100m and we got a lot of snow at that height and below, so much that for the second time this season and the first time ever at Morillon we need snow chains to get out the village.

When we arrived on Thursday evening it was raining prettily heavily and fairly warm so we had low expectations for skiing. However, the next morning we were sat outside on the terrace at the local bakery in sunshine and the air had a pleasant freshness.

The best snow was always going to be over at Flaine so we skied over there. The rain had fallen as snow somewhere between the 1800m - 2000m mark. So, Flaine had some really nice conditions, some fresh snow on firm base.

Conditions stayed pretty good until after midday, so we headed back down to Flaine for some lunch at the Le Grain de Sel down in Flaine Forum. We’d not tried there before and it turned out to be very good.

On the way back to Morillon the top of the north slopes were quite good but below the 1800m mark the snow was extremely heavy and pretty tiring to push around. Despite this I’d say the base is still pretty good, there’s very few bare patches so if the temperature drops again the skiing should remain reasonable for a little while yet.

I’m not sure when we’ll ski in the Grand Massif again now, we’ve put our flat there on the market and I do not expect we’ll still have it next season.

(View from the top of Flaine towards Mt Blanc)

We went over to our place in Morillon on Friday evening, as is now usual it seemed a bit busy in the station. But, Saturday is always a good day to ski and people were leaving as we got up in the morning.The day started really well, it was a little warm maybe, but, that meant we were able to eat our breakfast outside on the terrace of the local bakery which was a great start for the day.

We’d arranged to meet a couple of people from SnowHeads over at Les Moillets so we did a couple of runs and headed that way. Julie pointed out it might have been unfortunate if the people turned to be anyone I’d been rude about from the lifts Luckily this turned out not be true ….

For me, we had a great day, it’s a little warm even given it’s late March but it’s nice to ski in the warm after some of the really cold temperatures we’ve had this season.

For some reason, after meeting Marc from SnowHeads, I suggested skiing the short off-piste section parallel to the Corbalanche lift, I really don’t know why I bother, it’s a south facing slope and only ever any good about 1 in 20 times I ski it. The last time I was there it was rutted ice and this time it was just heavy, my skis vanished below the surface and I hardly saw them until the bottom of the slope, most of which I spent in a wide stance stretching ligaments trying to force my skis where I wanted them to be. The other side of the valley with the north facing slope is always better and on the way back was quite pleasant.

We finished off down the Marvel run into Morillon Les Esserts, most visitors miss this gem, it’s a long green which curves down through the forest. It’s never steep but there’s always enough gradient to ski it without skating.

This was the first visit to our apartment in Morillon for a month or so; we try to avoid the area during peak times if at all possible. The roads were still busy even on Friday evening though, the French now seem to leave Friday night and drive through the night to avoid the rush on the the Saturday.It’s been pretty cold recently so the snow in the Grand Massif is in quite excellent condition with packed snow on the pistes. Any easily accessible off-piste if totally tracked out through, it’s less genuine volume of traffic but more people traversing for hundreds of meters before falling over and repeating in the opposite direction.

We skied over to Flaine in the morning where most of the terrain seems to be open, in fact cover is quite good and it’s possible to ski between the pistes in reasonable safety.

There’s so little you can say about the architecture that’s not already been said From just above the station things do improve a little of course :

We then headed back towards Les Carroz for some lunch at the Bois de la Char, it’s always good in there, the food is always good, it’s not haute cuisine but the service is good and it’s always nice to go.

After the lunch the light was fantastic, in fact it really was the perfect February ski day, cold, clear skies and great snow. The only downside is that the numbers of people on the slopes not in control seems to be steadily increasing to the point where you spend most of the day just avoiding collisions. It must have been horrific during the week when the crowds were there.