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Great snow cover across Alpe d'Huez this week

With a season high of 97 pistes open there’s plenty to choose from

featured in Snow report Author Rob Wood, Alpe d'Huez Reporter Updated

As most of you will know, especially if you follow our dump alerts, it’s been a snowy old week here in Alpe d’Huez.

It started snowing in earnest overnight on Thursday/Friday (2nd/3rd Feb) and snowed pretty much over the whole weekend, through to Monday (6th) afternoon/early evening. In that period we had a cracking dump of snow with around 60cm falling at resort level (1850 metres) and around 80cm falling up on the higher slopes (3300 metres).

a snowy sign for alpe d'Huez

This snow fall was mainly thanks to Storm Doris, which battered Southern England at the end of last week. The large area of low pressure that accompanied Storm Doris brought with it plenty of moisture laden clouds that duly snowed over the whole of the Alps last weekend. We did pick up a bit of the tail of the winds that went with the storm, but these dropped off by Monday and since then wind has been mainly light. Although off-piste conditions were affected by the winds over last weekend, becoming a bit windblown and insecure.

We currently have a large area of low pressure over Italy which is controlling our weather and we have barometric pressure of 1022mb at the moment and it looks set to stay around this level for the next 5 to 7 days and with a widening in the isobars, winds should drop to a hardly noticeable 5 to 7kph from the South East by Saturday. The current temperatures of around -5degC in the mornings and 0degC in the afternoons look set to rise to around +5degC in resort in the afternoons by Saturday and with more sunshine in the forecast it should be lovely.

a piste sign in alpe dhuez

It’s been very cloudy for the past week or so and on Thursday morning we saw the first real breaks in the cloud and by lunchtime the cloud cover was much lighter and there were some sunny glimpses.

After the recent snowfall cover on the slopes now stands at around:

  • Resort 1850metres – 110cm
  • Pic Blanc 3300metres – 200cm
  • Villard Reculas – 90cm
  • Oz-en-Oisans – 90cm
  • Auris village – 90cm
  • Auris Signal – 110cm

Meanwhile off-piste depths are around:

  • 2500m North facing – 180cm
  • 2500m South facing – 130cm
  • 1500m North facing – 100cm
  • 1500m South facing – 80cm

The recent snow fell down to a level of around 1000 metres, well below the lowest pistes in the Grande Domaine ski area, so all the pistes received fresh snow.

Conditions across the whole ski area are really great now, and with an improvement in the weather the next couple of weeks should be cracking here in resort.

With February being a very busy month it’s worth considering the whole of the Grande Domaine ski area, and within the area we currently have 68 (out of 69) lifts open and these are serving a season high total of 97 pistes.

Of these pistes 35 are green (out of 40), 29 are blue (29), 26 are red (31) and 7 are black (16). In the Alpe d’Huez “bowl” itself we have 31 lifts open and these are serving 45 pistes, out of 31 and 56 respectively, so it’s pretty much full speed here now.

As predicted in my last snow report both snowparks are now open. The one here in resort by the DMC lift and the smaller one over in Vaujany.

a sign pointing to auris in alpe dhuez ski area

It’s very busy here now, and there’s no real getting away from that. With next week being the UK half term holiday it will remain really busy, as we still have French zone C (Paris, Montpellier) on holiday and next week sees the start of zone B (Marseille, Nice, etc) but you can get away from the crowds by heading across the scare chair to Auris, it’s always quieter over there (but don’t tell everyone – sshhhh!) The pistes down through the Foret de Maronne are really lovely and on the whole very quiet.

Another tip is to avoid taking your lunch break during the period that ski school take theirs, generally between 12 and 2.30pm. Crack on skiing in this period and take advantage of the lull in the lift queues and grab your lunch after 2.30pm! It’s not rocket science but the difference is noticeable.

As has been the case all season the ever popular black run Sarenne is in great condition, whilst the infamous Tunnel piste at the top of the PicBlanc is marked “good skiers only” and this really is the case on this super-steep, uber-mogully black run.

After the recent snowfall avalanche risk stands at 3 CONSIDERABLE across the whole of the area, so be careful out there.

There are currently 32 km of cross-country Nordic trails open, something I’m trying for the first time next week, so look out for my report and video on this and see what it’s all about.

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