Plenty of lifts running and good conditions up high

It’s been sun, sun and more sun for the past few weeks here in resort and that doesn’t look like changing for the next few days at least.

As has been the case recently a massive area of high pressure (1036mb) sits over most of northern and central Europe, barometric pressure looks set to remain at around 1030mb until at least the middle of the week. Much as the sunshine has been truly wonderful, the down side to that has been no new snow fall – the last reportable snowfall here was on 25th November.

A few centimetres of snow has fallen this morning and there does look to be some in the forecast for next weekend (Christmas Eve & Christmas Day), so it may well be a white Christmas after all.

Afternoon temperatures in resort (1850 metres) are still getting up to around +9 & +10degC, and even reaching around +4degC up at the top of the PicBlanc (3300 metres). However, the clear cloudless skies have meant that night-time temperatures have been plummeting which has enabled the vast network of snow cannons to be operation – and this man made snow on top of the good base that was formed in November has ensured that conditions on-piste remain really good.

Snow cover currently stands at 90cm up at the top of the PicBlanc (3300 metres) and 20cm on the slopes around Les Bergers and the DMC (1850metres). Runs are open all the way down into resort, but they do get a bit narrower the lower you go, and they are in good condition none the less. On the whole the runs from the top of the PicBlanc back down to the DMC are in better condition than those from the top of the Marmottes back down to Les Bergers.

There are now 30 lifts (out of 49) in operation in the Grande Domaine ski area and these are now serving 31 pistes (out of 89). Of these 6 are green, 5 blue, 23 red and 5 black. 23 of the open lifts and 29 of the pistes are here in Alpe d’Huez itself. There are now 2 runs open over in Auris-en-Oisans (across the scare chair).

Both the newly constructed lifts here Alpe d’Huez – the replacement Grand Sure in the middle of town and the completely re-modelled Signal are now fully open and really are great – the Signal in particular now runs really quickly and makes a great alternative to the always busy DMC. The newly formed green run, Marcels Farm, from the top of the Signal is great – long gone is that horrible cross falling, icy nightmare – it’s now lovely and level with loads of snow cannons – so chapeau to SATA for this €16 million investment.

Up high both the Sarenne and Tunnel black runs are open, the Sarenne is in great condition all the way down – however as usual the Tunnel is uber-mogully and is marked “good skiers only,” and this really is the case – so be careful.

Both the snowpark here in Alpe d’Huez and the smaller one over in Vaujany remained closed at the moment.

There are now 13km (out of 43km) of Nordic trails open, as well as 1km of walking trail (out of 35km) up to Lac Besson.