© Alpe d'Huez Tourisme
© Rob Wood
© Rob Wood
Best conditions for decade in Alpe d'Huez
It's going to be a great Chirstmas
In over 10 years in Alpe d’Huez I have never seen so much snow so early in the season, in previous years I've spent the Christmas period riding my bike and even playing golf – not so this year – this really is a bumper start to the season.
As reported in multiple dump alerts it snowed pretty much every day between the 7th and 18th December, with several overnight dumps in excess of 25cm. This snowfall started with a weather front that accompanied Storm Caroline across the Atlantic, bringing with it widespread snowfall to Northern Europe, including the UK.
Since Monday the weather has settled down now with a large area of high pressure occupying an area from the Iberian Peninsula across to Greece, with barometric pressure settling nicely at around 1025Mb. Barometric pressure looks set to remain pretty steady at around 1025/1030Mb for the next 7 to 10 days and the weather looks set to be mainly sunny in that period. Temperatures look set to remain at around -1C in resort (1850m) and around -8C up at 3300m.
The prolonged period of snowfall brought around 70cm to resort level and around 1m at the top of Pic Blanc at 3300m, conditions really are fabulous across all elevations.
On piste snow depths across the ski area currently stand at:
| Alpes d'Huez 1850m | 110cm |
| Pic Blanc 3300m | 150cm |
| Villard Reculas 1500m | 110cm |
| Oz-en-Oisans 1350m | 90cm |
| Mont Frais 1650m | 100cm |
| Dome-des-Rousses 2800m | 140cm |
Meanwhile off piste snow depths are:
| Elevation | North Facing | South Facing |
| 2500m | 200cm | 180cm |
| 1500m | 70cm | 50cm |
| 1000m | 20cm | 10cm |
Snow cover currently continues down to an elevation of 1000metres, so every single slope in the ski area has snow cover.
In addition to the great dumps of snow, the cold overnight temperatures have also seen the use of the snow cannon network, which is serving to further enhance the already impressive snow depths.
This week has seen a marked increase in visitor numbers, mainly due to the school Christmas holidays starting here in France and across Europe. Saturday saw a lot of visitors arrive. The majority of the tourists seem to be English speaking families in the main.
The large volume of fresh snow in such a short time meant the pisteurs of SATASKI have had lots of work to do in order to secure the ski area. Initially avalanche risk went up to 4/5 (high), it is now down to 3/5 (considerable) and care still needs to be taken up on the hill. If you have any queries or doubts simply ask the nearest mountain rescue worker (black and orange outfits), and as I’ve said before don’t be a hero.
The sterling work of the pisteurs now means that we have 45 pistes open and these are being served by 27 lifts, so lift queues remain short.
Of these pistes 15 are green, 11 blue, 16 red and 3 black – so there’s something for everybody.
We now also have 24km of Nordic cross country trials open as well as 13km of perfectly prepared walking trails as well.
There are now pistes and lifts open in the neighbouring resorts of Vaujany, Oz-en-Oisans and Villard Reculas, and this always helps to take the pressure off the lift queues.
Normally this early in the season you have to put in a bit of effort to search out the best snow, however, this year given the great snowfall, conditions across the whole ski area are truly fantastic.
Bon ski!
