Fantastic conditions across Alpe d'Huez this week

For those who follow our dump alerts you will know we had 2 dumps of snow last week. The first, although only around 15cm on Tuesday, was most welcome and was only the precursor of what was to come towards the end of the week – snow started to fall in earnest overnight Thursday into Friday morning and continued to fall all day Friday and well into Saturday – this brought a massive dump, with around 40cm falling in resort and a massive 85cm falling up at 3300 metres. 

On Saturday up at the top of the Pic Blanc I saw the SATA litfties clearing a path through the snow to the start of the Sarenne and the swath they cut was literally hip deep through the fresh snow.

This snow fall was largely brought about by the arrival of an area of low pressure that brought with it snow fall all the way to elevations of around 300 metres across most of the Alps. Barometric pressure still stands at around 1016mb but this area of low pressure looks like being replaced by an area of high pressure over the next few days – with pressure set to rise to around 1032mb, which will bring sunnier more settled weather.

The down side the recent low pressure has been a tightening in the isobars which has led to windy conditions. These northerly winds have been bitingly cold and with temperatures of around -15degC – the wind chill has been dropping temperatures to around -25degC at 3300 metres. These winds look set to drop over the next couple of days though thankfully, as this did lead to the intermittent closure of some of the higher lifts over the weekend, but that disruption appears to have finished now.

The forecast for the next 7 to 10 days is very settled with lots of sunshine and a rise in daytime temperatures to around +5degC in resort in the afternoons – which will be lovely on the south facing slopes of the DMC with the new snow.

After the recent snow fall cover now stands at:

• 3300metres – 160cm
• 1850metres in Alpe d’Huez – 70cm
• Auris village – 60cm
• Auris Signal – 85cm
• Villard Reculas village – 50cm
• Oz-en-Oisans village – 50cm

And finally after the new snow there is some off-piste snow as well with around 100cm on the North facing areas at 2500 metres down to around 40cm at resort level (1850 metres).

With this, avalanche risk currently stands at 3 – CONSIDERABLE – so please take care out there – if you have any doubts simply ask the nearest liftie, just look for the nearest orange and black outfit or speak to a ski instructor or mountain guide. 

There are now 38 lifts open (out of 49) in the Grande Domaine ski area – of which 22 are in Alpe d’Huez itself. These lifts are serving 56 pistes (out of 89 and up from 44 last week) of these 25 are green, 12 blue, 13 red and 6 are black.

Conditions across the whole of the area are great now. Lift queues and pistes are really quiet at the moment, and with more pistes opening all the time, this looks set to stay the same.

The fresh snow has allowed more runs to open in Auris (across the scare chair) with 12 runs now open and 6 now open in Villard Reculas. Both the snowparks here, the big one here in resort and the smaller one over in Vaujany, remain closed – but with all the fresh snow, they will soon be open. More pistes are opening every day. Take a look at our Live Lift Status page for details. 

There are 9km of Nordic trails open and 3km of walking trails open up towards the Lac Besson – which is stunning as always, should you fancy a day away from the slopes.

If you're skiing over to the neighbouring parts of the ski area, don't forget to check the times of the last lifts back!