Last week of the season in Alpe d'Huez

There were a couple of windy days last and unfortunately these did lead to some lift closures, thankfully this week looks like being a lot more settled and we look set for some lovely sunny days to end the season on. The warmer temperatures have definitely started to give it more of a spring feel on the pistes as the snow takes on a softer slushier feel.

With rising temperatures and a still impressive snowpack depth the avalanche risk currently stands at 3/5 across the whole of the ski area – so as always take care up on the hill. It did lower to 2/5 across the lower slopes towards the middle of the week, but rising temperatures at the weekend have seen a rise to 3 across the board.

Last week was the final week of the UK school Easter holiday period, as all the schools return this week, but undoubtedly the busiest of the Easter holiday period weeks was the first week that included the Bank Holiday weekend – and last week was fairly quiet. This week, as is always the case for the last week of the season, will be very quiet.

After a week that included some late season snow fall and rising temperatures, cover on-piste currently stands super-impressively for late-April at:

After a bit of snow this week, off-piste snow cover now stands at:

Tuesday's snowfall gave us the luxury of some nice late-season champagne powder, and considering we are well into April conditions are still great off-piste. It goes without saying at this late stage of the season that the best of the off-piste conditions are higher up (+2800m) and North facing – generally between the Dome des Rousses, Pic Blanc and towards Clavans.

These depths of snow so late into the season will see ski-touring continuing here well into May and possibly even into early June as those intrepid ski-tourers hunt out the very last bits of powder up on the hill.

As we enter the last week of the season we continue to have the wonderful luxury of a massive amount of pistes still being open, even the lower runs through the Maronne Forest (like Farcis and Col) over in Auris and Village down to Huez, down at around 1500metres – and their condition on the whole for late April is pretty good.

Today we still had 62 lifts in operation (out of 69 = 90%) and these were serving a whooping 90 pistes (out of 103 = 87%) – pretty impressive as this fabulous season finally draws to a close.

Of these 90 open pistes - 26 are green, 31 are blue, 24 are red and 9 are black. So as has been the case all winter there really is something for all abilities and tastes, which is great as we enter the final couple of weeks of this incredible season. Although this week will undoubtedly see a gradual phasing of the closure of pistes across the ski area.

The always popular Sarenne black run is still in fair condition on the whole but the bottom section down in the gorge is starting to wear quite a bit now, as its quite low and with the rising temperatures this has taken its toll on the lower flatter bit. If you are tackling the Sarenne, best get at it nice and early in the morning.

As is often the case late in the season the super steep and mogully black run Tunnel is subject to some closures, and this will no doubt continue for the final week of the season.

As the season comes to a close there continues to be 100% of the cross country ski trails open, with 39km of lovely groomed trails open and they really are in great condition for such a late stage in the season, but like the main pistes they do get softer as the day goes on, so as is always the case at this stage of the season the early bird really does catch the worm. In addition to these XC trails there are still 36km of walking trails open and they are truly breath-taking at this time of the year.

As we are now well into mid-April the days continue to stretch out with sunrise this morning at 0651am and sunset at 2019pm – so we had a whooping 13hours 28minutes of daylight today to enjoy all that Alpe d’Huez has to offer in Spring.