Another Sunny Day in La Rosiere

A good day's skiing in the sun including a lunch at the Relais du Petit St Bernard. The snow in the pass seemed the nicest in the afternoon, though some of the runs in La Rosiere and Les Eucherts were good in the morning.

Here is Roger in front of Mont Blanc.

Progress so far...

Travel

A fairly uneventful trip. Roger and I left Bristol at about 8am, and were at the channel tunnel at 11. We were offered (and took) the chance to travel on the 11:50 train instead of the 12:36 and reached Le Val Moret as it was getting dark.

We resisted the lobster menu and the deconstructed crunchy irish coffee, but had a very pleasant meal.

Unpleasant fog from the off on Saturday most of the way to Dijon, but no traffic or road problems, so we were in La Rosiere about 3:30pm.

Skiing

A rather unpleasant day on Sunday, doing two runs in zero visibility, which made me completely sea-sick, so I retired to bed for the afternoon.

A good day today, over to La Thuile in bright sun all day for coffee at La Cremerie, so here's the traditional picture of coffee there.

La Cremerie Coffee

A lot of La Thuile is closed, all of the Arnouvaz area is shut, and some of the lifts in the pass are also closed. There's even a pond on what is normally part of the piste in the centre of the resort!

Roger in front of Mont Blanc

We came back through the pass and had lunch at the fort restaurant. Then tried to find Choucas to get back to the front de neige, but it no longer exists! My theory is that they're funnelling you down to the new Plan du Repos lift to ensure that it has lots of traffic and can be shown to be useful!

"My Tracks" reckons 51.78km travelled in 5h 37m with a top speed of 75km/h and 4,863m of elevation gain.

Another sunny day is forecast tomorrow!

Getting Ready

2015 is my tenth year at Intel, so the way Intel "sabbaticals" work here in Europe, I have another. I therefore have a place booked through the Channel tunnel at 12:36pm on Friday to head down to the Alps. The first week will be at Mike's Hotel La Roz . Since it has now (finally) snowed in the Alps, I'm looking forward to some great skiing. 

I have also persuaded Roger Shepherd (man, it was hard) that he wasn't doing anything important next week, that Mike is offering a great deal and that Roger needed to come skiing, so you can expect a bunch of photos from him next week that explicitly don't contain Mont Blanc.

More soon...

We got to Italy

Amazing powder snow in La Rosiere, but grey light and poor visibility. One excellent run, first down the top of the black run from the Roc Noir lift; powder so deep it fluffs up into your mouth and over your goggles! The couple of French guys who were also there agreed that it was "Incroyable" and "Magnifique".

However the sun in Italy was calling so off through the pass and down to La Cremerie.

The pizza oven in Le Rascard was broken, so we had lunch at Maison Carel.

As expected, the snow in Italy was very different. Icy low down, and blown off higher up. Still, nice to get in one day in something approaching sun.

On the way back along Choucas, in poor visibility, I hit a snow drift (on piste!) that knocked me backwards so that I ended up still in my skis but lying backwards with snow over my head! Apparently I just disappeared.

Back in La Rosiere

Back in La Rosiere with the family, but in a new (to us) chalet. This year we have the chalet to ourselves. Food and hospitality as good as ever, with Alex and Emma doing a great job.

Tea laid out ready for tired skiers

The weather hasn't been great so far this week, with lots of grey clouds on the pistes and snow, so we haven't made it to Italy yet. As the sign said "Italy is closed" (which may be a slightly extreme view!).

Alison threatened by a mad marmotte

We had a good day today despite the grey weather, with an off piste lesson in the morning with ESF. Ashley got stuck in a tree, and Jennifer is probably now ahead of Alison on points in the "Breaking ski-poles" competition, since she managed to break one of the instructors poles, which counts for three points as against Alison's two for breaking both her own poles. (Breaking someone else who isn't an instructor would be 2 points). By the end of the lesson everyone more or less had the idea, and was enjoying themselves.
After lunch more just off piste, with nice snow everywhere.

I wanted to take a picture of Mont Blanc for Roger, since he's so keen on them, but we haven't seen it yet...

Panoramas and other photos

A few photos (mostly panoramas) for you today...

View of Bec Rouge and Mont Pourri

View over Bourg St Maurice from just down the Ecudets run

Petit St Bernard pass from the Fort

Mont Pourri framed by cloud.

Back to La Rosiere

7 Feb 2012

7 Feb 2011

What a difference a year makes ! (Well, 38 degrees C, anyway...) Last year there was very little snow (none in the village) , and the temperature at the "front de neige" was +19C. This year there was snow at Lyon airport, 235cm at the front de neige, and the temperature is -19C.

The problem this year is stopping all the snow on the roofs bringing buildings down. A problem that isn't always solved successfully...

Building in Les Eucherts collapsed through weight of snow.

A couple of good days skiing, yesterday with the family, today over to Italy, since Jo was off on an all day snow-shoe excursion, and the other had booked a private lesson so needed to be back at ESF at 12:30. 

The weather is supposed to warm up, though it's currently cloudy with light snow forecast for tonight. It was certainly cold in the pass once the wind got up!