Springlike conditons in Alpe d'Huez this week

Barometric pressure currently stands at 1020mb with nice wide isobars ensuring light winds, around 5 to 7mph north north-easterly and it looks set to stay like this for the next 5 to 7 days at least. Morning temperatures in resort are around 0degC at the moment rising to a spring like +7/8degC in the afternoons and in the sunshine it really is lovely.

The forecast for the weekend is gloriously sunny with afternoon temperatures of around +8degC in resort.

The current freeze level is around 2500 metres this will drop to around 1500 metres on Thursday/Friday as the weather front pushes through before rising back up to around 2400/2500 metres at the weekend.

Avalanche risk is now down to 2 MODERATE across the whole of the Grande Domaine ski area, but you should still respect the mountain nevertheless.

Snow cover currently stands at:

• Alpe d’Huez resort (1850m) – 90cm
• Pic Blanc (3300m) – 160cm
• Auris village (1650m) – 60cm
• Auris signal (2176m) – 90cm
• Villard Reculas village (1500m) – 60cm
• Vaujany village (1250m) – 10cm
• Oz village (1350m) – 35cm
• Montfrais (1650m) – 40cm
• Dome des Rousses station (2800m) – 120cm

Off-piste snow depths are currently around:

• 2500 metres North facing – 170cm
• 2500 metres South facing – 80cm
• 1500 metres North facing – 40cm
• 1500 metres South facing – 0cm

Snow cover currently extends down to 1200 metres of elevation on north facing off piste areas and 1700 metres on south facing off piste areas.

As has been the case the for the past week or so we have ALL 69 lifts in the Grande Domaine ski area in operation and with it still being half term holiday time this is helping to keep lift queues down.

These 69 lifts are currently serving 107 pistes (out of 116) – these are as follows:

• Green 40 (out of 40)
• Blue 29 (29)
• Red 27 (31)
• Black 11 (16)

Of these lifts and pistes, 31 lifts and 50 pistes are in Alpe d’Huez itself.

Both the snowparks are open are in great condition, the larger one here in Alpe d’Huez (below the DMC lift) and the smaller one over in Montfrais (towards Vaujany).

Although the bulk of the UK half term school holiday was last week (Mon 13th to Fri 17th) there is still a fairly large contingent of UK visitors in resort at the moment and things are still pretty busy thanks to the last week of French zone B school holidays (Marseille, Strasbourg, Rouen, Lille etc) and the ongoing French zone A (Bordeaux, Dijon, Grenoble, Lyon etc). Zone A continues for one more week after this week (up to 5th March) and with this being the “local” area it will continue to be busy with French families right up to the 5th March.

Conditions have been quite spring like for the past few days, particular in the afternoon sunshine, so without stating the very obvious the best of conditions in the afternoons are to be found on the higher slopes

As I reported in my last video the Marmottes lift system gets really busy in the afternoons and is best avoided between 2.30/3.30pm, if you want to get up high in the afternoons, head up to the DMC lift were the lift queue is generally smaller and faster moving. The Marmottes chair lift has to slow a bit to let walkers on who are going to La Folie Douce for some afternoon fun in the sun, whereas the DMC being a gondola and keeps on moving at the same speed and this small detail definitely has an effect on the lift queue.

As always the quieter slopes are still to be found over in Auris-en-Oisans, across the scare chair, but it has been cutting up a bit as the afternoon goes on over there (south facing and at lower elevation).

The Sarenne black run is in lovely condition as it has been all season and likewise the Tunnel black run remains super-mogully and steep and is still marked as for “good skiers only” and this genuinely is the case on this really tricky black run.

With lovely sunny afternoons it’s a real lunch up on the hill time at the moment and my personal favourite – Le Spot – in between Marmottes 1 and DMC 1 (in a diagonal sort of direction) is great at the moment, whilst another lovely place for lunch is the restaurant over at the Lac Besson, which is accessed from the blue run Boulevard des Lacs.