Tignes

I got up to Tignes on Saturday after a Crystal transfer down to Chambery airport and Altibus from there back to Tignes. Amazingly I had a two minute transfer in Bourg so got here 90 minutes before the schedule had promised.

Installed in Tignes Chalet Company's Chalet Les Martins, which has the best views of any chalet I have been to in Tignes (it helps that I'm in the top floor slice).

Admittedly zoomed, but the view of the Grande Motte from the dining room...

Lots of snow in Tignes

Decent weather on Sunday (did la Face down into Val, then back over here and down Sache to Les Brevs).

Weather not too bad on Monday, though closing in. All around in Tignes, up to the Aiguille Percée and down Sache again in the morning. With the flat light up with Snoworks to do the Tour du Charvet.

Aiguille Percée

On Tuesday the weather was unpleasant, so I did one run down Trolles and then gave up for the morning. Out with Snoworks in the afternoon where we did the Almes lift six times (exploring the powder), since it was almost the only lift open.  When it closed, up to Val Claret, but Piste Henri (the one which used to be the punning "Piste H") was so unpleasant in strong wind and the real, biting, ice-crystal teeth of the storm that we packed up early.

No lifts at all open today, so Café Flo this morning for Nick's avalanche education films, then an hour or so digging out transceivers.

Mont Blanc over La Rosiere

Les Deux Alpes

I spent last week in Les 2Alpes with much of my family. We started the week on crusty snow which had been rained on, then frozen, but got a great last couple of days in sun on a small amount of new snow. Eleanor (aged 3) seemed to enjoy the Jardin des Enfants, and Max (aged 2) the snow clearing equipment ("Hello digger").

Skitracks didn't seem to like me, and managed to pause itself every day without me asking it to, so the numbers don't make much sense.

I stayed in the friendly Hotel de la Valentin, which was pleasant and not too English, despite being booked through Crystal!

Here are some photos of the sunny days.

 

Champagny en Vanoise

View waiting for the Chunnel

After leaving Bristol with snow on the ground, and driving to the Chunnel, I found snow there too.

Reims Christmas Lights

I drove on to Reims, where the Christmas lights are still up. I stayed in the Hotel Azur , as I usually do, then drove on down to Champagny.

The weather on Saturday was fine right through to Moutiers, but a bit above Brides Les Bains it got very slippy. After diverting into Brides (and thinking of staying the night there), I grappled with the chains, and was then able to drive up to Champagny. (The first time I have successfully put the chains in when I needed them).

Excellent skiing both yesterday and today in Champagny and La Plagne, but cold. -17C and lower.

Stats (According to skitracks)

January 15: 

Max speed 64.7kph

Ski Distance: 35.2 km

Ski Vertical: 5403m

Runs: 16

(This is definitely confused by taking the bubble back down to Champagny)

January 16:

Max speed: 70.1 kph

Ski Distance: 25.8 km

Ski Vertical : 3682m

Runs: 19

(This isn't; I started/ended skitracks at the top of the bubble).

Sunny weather in La Plagne

Friday

After snow last night it cleared and there was sun all day. Here's le Mont Pourri from the bus stop this morning.





I was seduced by the powder so went down the black from Roches Noirs, and then down Marmottes, which was unpisted from below the Plan du Repos lift. Back up Petit Bois and down the black, off-piste to the right (below l'Ancolie). Back up and a coffee in aux Trois Ours, up around and over to Italy, where the snow was much less interesting. (No powder visible, and wind-blown crust off-piste). Lunch on Maison Carrel (the excellent tagliatelle ai funghi porcini), a bunch of the blacks into town, coffee and ice-cream!




















Some of the runs in the pass, and a final excellent coffee there (for €1.30), then back home to catch the 4pm bus.

The mirror side of the PSB express

Heading back to the UK tomorrow!

Ski Distance: 51.7km
Max Speed: 74.7 km/h
Ski vertical: 8643m
Runs: 20
Max slope: 28 degrees

Thursday

The weather was mixed again today, starting with low cloud, and remaining cold all day. After starting slowly and saying goodbyes to Maurice, we went down to Ecudets a couple of times, once down the black and once the red. The snow was pretty good, with some powder off piste.

I went over to Eucherts (via the Chevreuil black, which still had some cut up powder) for lunch at Aux Trois Ours. You can see them here, looking down on my coffee.


Then up the Eucherts chair just to get enough height to get down Marcassin (the black near the Petit Bois lift below Eucherts). I ended up doing it three times off piste to the right as you go down. Cut up and heavy, but good practice! Here's the view down to Le Chatelard from part way down.

Wednesday

The weather forecast was right. Snow, cold, with the wind increasing through the day. However, Maurice and I got up and then down to Fontaine Froide, where the visibility between the trees was much better, and the snow OK at the top and slush at the bottom.
We had a coffee at the place with the very small door (even Maurice had to duck!) and tepee. Richard was also there, as a sensible reader of this blog he had also found the only sane place to ski on the mountain!

We did a second run down Fontaine Froide, then back up the (awfully slow) Ecudets lift and out into the gale, zero visibility and horizontal flying ice to get back down as fast as possible to le front de neige.

Jo was snow-shoeing, we met her for a good lunch at Le Marmottes.(With Genèpi booked for this evening, since it is both Maurice's last night, and the chalet host's night off).

Tuesday

We headed for Italy. The pistes in La Rosière had been well groomed overnight, and the heavy, cut up, state of yesterday was replaced by some corduroy.  Unusually, both the left and right drag-lifts in the pass were running (we, of course, took the righthand one, since it is faster!). Although it was hot, we headed down for a coffee in the pass, which at €1.50 for an espresso is a bargain. As we were drinking our coffee, I was recognised! "Are you Jim? Skiing Jim?" It turned out to be Richard with whom I had stayed in Tignes Les Brevières a long time ago...
Since my general belief is that I am not famous even in my own family, this was a shock!


Maurice and I carried on down to the centre of La Thuile and went for pizzas at Lo Tata, which were excellent as usual. The snow low down was melting, but higher up and in the pass was beautiful. The run down to the café was great, however most of the black runs in the pass were closed; pretty much all that was open were the runs you need to get fro A to B.

After lunch, back up the bubble and homewards, into the normal wind in the pass.
Some of the views in Italy were great, here you can see the Matterhorn, if you know where to look...

Panorama over La Thuile including the Matterhorn (Monte Cervino)

Google also created this version, which may make the Matterhorn more obvious.

How Google thinks it should be enhanced!

As ever, the sudden view over France when coming back through the pass is a joy!


The weather forecast for tomorrow is snow all day and cold. So we may end up not doing much...

Monday

Lots of snow yesterday, but then rain overnight, so everything is very heavy. The link to Italy didn't open until 11-ish, so we arranged to meet Jo for lunch at Le Plan du Repos. She walked up from Eucherts.

Jo at Plan du Repos

Maurice on the mountain

We'll aim for Italy first thing tomorrow, since the pass should be open, and Wednesday is looking bad according to Méteo France.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Catching up!

Friday

La Piste Perdu

Friday started off looking very flat, so we went down La Piste Perdue,

I had no time to take pictures of the points where you have to take your skis off and drop down under rocks!
As you can see, the sun began to come out, so we went down Le Spatule again, before heading back to Tignes.

La Grande Motte and Val Claret

Since I'd worked out the GoPro I went over to Val, and GoPro-ed the descent of La Face and then both directions on the up-and-over. All of those need an editor, so I won't post them here.

Saturday

It turned out colder, though still relatively sunny. I did a number of runs and then ran down Le Golf back to the chalet to pick up another layer! Back up to Val Claret and a very good Tarte au Beaufort (with leeks). Up on the slug

and then the cable-car (after a wind-delay) to the top of La Grande Motte.

Down, around, and back to town to return my skis. Then back to the chalet for a shower, tea and cake, and a "Putting on chains" lesson from Paul before driving down to La Rosière, where Jo was already installed. The snow arrived an hour or so later, and Maurice (fresh from the US via LHR and GVA a few hours after that!)

Sunday

It was snowing. Unfortunately they'd shut Fontaine Froide, so Maurice and I went over to Eucherts, had coffee in Le Plan du Repos and did Marmottes to the bottom, where the light was better, but the snow heavy. Back for lunch in the Relais, where Jo was attacked by Alison's marmot!

Thursday in Tignes

Paul and Lorraine's day off, so no hot breakfast today (and an excuse to lie in, since the Snoworks course was in the afternoon again). But I was still on a lift by 9:30 (which, in English time, is before I'd be in the office!)

Having failed to GoPro La Face de Bellevarde yesterday (I ended up with a large number of timelapse stills) I was going to do it today, but forgot to pack the harness. Maybe tomorrow.

No pictures of Mont Blanc today (sorry, Roger), but here's la Grande Motte.



Apparently the snow down the back above Le Fornet was horrible this morning, so we did fairly similar things to yesterday (a run down from Solaise to le Laisenant, and then down to Le Fornet).

Emma is confidently predicting snow for tonight. We'll see...

This evening, I visited La Palette du Boulele, which was wonderful (and full of people speaking French. I didn't hear an English conversation), then visited the excellent "A la Crêperie Bretonne". Which did everything it said on the can. Galette au sarrazin oeuf fromage, val de Rance cidre, crêpe au crème de marrons. Parfait! I also discovered (from the place mat) that "le Roi Artur" was "un chasseur de sangliers". Something I had somehow previously missed,which puts him straight into Asterix. Maybe there was a place at the round table for Obélix?

Wednesday in Tignes

Another day with beautiful weather (though Méteo France are forecasting snow for next week in La Rosiére at the moment). The morning I was out a little later (first lift at 9:30 instead of 9:15) since the Snoworks course was staring in Val at 1:15, rather than Tignes at 9:15.

I skied on my own, mostly randomly following lifts, which tool me up to top of the Charvet.

View into the Charvet

A good session of hors-piste this afternoon with Emma and the others. We made a descent of Le Grand Vallon, before taking the bus from Le Fornet back to Val, and then up and over 

Le Grand Vallon (looking up)

Le Grand Vallon (looking down)

Google thinks that one of those should be in black and white, like this!

Tomorrow somewhere else up above Val...

Tuesday

A successful day, the Skiworks course in the morning, with Emma Carrick-Anderson explaining to me all the things that I know are wrong with my off-piste skiing! (I'm not low enough, I'm tryng to ski parallel...). She did say I had improved by the end, though!

Rob and I skied down to Les Brevieres for lunch (a very good Tarte au Beaufort et sa salade verte).

No photos from this morning; we were too busy skiing.
So here are a couple from this afternoon.

Mont Blanc from Toviere

La Grande Motte

The course starts in Val d'Isere tomorrow, I expect we'll be over to le Fornet.

Stats

Ski distance: 40.9 km (+lifts 27.2km)

Vertical descent: 7397m

Max Speed: 72.1 km/h

TIgnes

I met the Snoworks folks and have been allocated to Emma Carrick-Anderson's off-piste group, but, due to my own stupidity (reserving a lift pass starting on 1 February, which took a while, and a call to someone in the data-centre to fix!), I ended up skiing with another chap who had also messed u his lift pass in the morning, and then skiing with Ewan's "All Terrain" course in the afternoon.

Rob and I went up la Grande Motte


Here's (a slightly weird) Google panorama from the cable car station at the top of the Grande Motte.



And, to prove I really was there...



And, for anyone who is interested. SkiTracks reckons
Max Speed: 70.4 km/h
Ski Distance: 35.2 km (+24.4 km on lifts)
Descent: 6474m
Max Altitude: 3505m (though that's a GPS height, which is ~50m above the French Datum)

I'm looking forward to the Snoworks off-piste tomorrow (now that I have a working lift-pass!)

Les Arcs

A mixed drive down

• 30 minute delay on Eurotunnel 
• Missing the exit to Magnant (and so not getting to Le Val Moret)
• Unpleasant rain down through France on Friday

But

• A decent hotel in Chaumont (where I saw the Tour d'Arse)
• Some wonderful views of wind-turbines standing above fog, and chateaux d'eau also above fog.
• The excellent, view of snowy Alps at Chambery

After arriving in Bourg about 4:30 on Saturday, I stayed at the Hostellerie, the dining room is as great as ever, and the "chariot de fromages" should be in some "liste de la Patrimone de la France".

The view from my room looked like this, this morning.

Here's the funicular arriving in Bourg 

 

And here are some views from the Aiguille Rouge.

And, for those who will be with us in La Rosiere next week, here's a view over to la Rosiere.

And, since you enjoy coffee pictures, and French humour

Enough for today... (though I did do a single run with 1800m of descent!)