© Rob Wood
© Rob Wood
© Rob Wood
© Rob Wood
© Rob Wood
© Rob Wood
Every lift in operation in Alpe d’Huez
As we enter the busiest week of the season, all the resort is open!
Alpe d'Huez was very lively this weekend as fleets of coaches and cars arrived for what is always the busiest week of the season. All you could see was fresh arrivals walking around town with the newly collected hire skis and boots.
We did get a light snowfall on Friday night into Saturday, nothing significant but a nice little top up nonetheless. It was enough to fill the classic cross-country skiing tracks with fresh snow, these grooves are around 10cm deep and the snow must have fallen in early hours after the trails had been prepared.
Little top-ups of snow have been the case for the past couple of weeks with several smaller snowfalls rather than one significant dump. This has helped keep the avalanche risk down, it currently stands at 2 out of 5 across the whole of the ski area, which is good news. It was snowing first thing on Sunday morning as well and, although this had fizzled out by around 11:00, it did start snowing again at around 15:00, and then into Monday morning!
Temperatures have remained nice and cold all week and this has ensured that the slopes remain in tip-top condition. It looks set to stay cold through until Thursday when temperatures will rise up to around +3ºC.
On Sunday morning, the Marmottes 1 lift queue was particularly long especially at ski school time (around 09:30 to 10:30), so try and get up before then in order to miss the ski school “rush hour”. As is always the case, the pistes across the “scare-chair” in Auris were much quieter than those in Alpe d’Huez itself.
The light was very “flat” on Sunday afternoon and, on days like these, the runs down to Oz from the mid-station DMC and from Auris down to Maronne provide a good option as they are tree-lined and have plenty of definition in poor visibility.
On-piste snow cover now stands at:
- Alpe d’Huez resort (1850m) - 195cm
- Pic Blanc (3300m) - 305cm
- Auris village (1650m) - 150cm
- Auris Signal (2176m) - 190cm
- Villard Reculas (1500m) - 130cm
- Vaujany (1250m) - 100cm
- Oz-en Oisans (1350m) - 110cm
- Montfrais (1650m) - 150cm
- Dome des Rousses (2800m) - 250cm
Off-piste cover now stands at:
- 2500m: north - 300cm, south - 290cm
- 2000m: north - 215cm, south - 170cm
- 1500m: north - 100cm, south - 60cm
- 1000m: north - 10cm, south - 5cm
Snow cover currently extends all the way down to around 900 metres, so every slope within the Grande Domaine ski area has plenty of snow cover. Thanks to continuing cold temperatures it remains nice, light and powdery.
We had all 68 lifts open this weekend (out of 68 = 100% = SEASON HIGH!) and 30 of these (out of 30 = 90%) were in Alpe d’Huez itself. These lifts are serving 101 pistes across the Grande Domain ski area, another SEASON HIGH. Which is great news as we now find ourselves in the busiest weeks of the winter.
Of these 101 pistes, 27 are green, 31 are blue, 27 are red and 16 are black. So there continues to be something for everybody with plenty of choices at all elevations, as has been the case for the past few weeks. The only runs not open this weekend were a couple of pistes over in Vaujany which were being used by the local ski club and these should return to general public use this week, potentially making it a full house of lifts and pistes in operation.
A few of the black runs continue to be recommended for “bon skieurs uniquement” (good skiers only), in the main because of their mogully terrain. These are Balcons and Chateau Noir in Alpe d’Huez, meanwhile, the super-steep and mogully Tunnel run is still recommended for “very good skiers only”. Black piste Fuma over in Auris on the way down to Maronne is now again marked as “for very good skiers only”, it’s not a long piste but is very steep! These warnings are in place for a reason, so please bear the warnings in mind.
Both snowparks are open and in great condition and, with this being a super busy week in resort, the one over in Vaujany will no doubt be much quieter than the one here in Alpe d’Huez.
We continue to have 100% of the cross-country ski trails open, with 39km of lovely groomed trails open. In addition to these, there are 36km of walking trails open (out of 37km = 97%).
As spring continues to hurtle towards us, the days are really starting to stretch here now. Sunrise this morning was 07:46 and, with sunset at 17:53, we get 10 hours and 7 minutes of daylight today, the first time so far we have had over 10 hours of daylight!
This Wednesday sees the first of 4 fabulous ESF ski shows up at the Signal slope at the top end of town, getting underway this week at 18:15. A torchlight descent by 300 ski instructors is followed by freestyle demonstration and a great firework display. The show is on every Wednesday through until 7th March and, if you are in resort, is not to be missed.
Bon ski!
