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Still winter in Alpe d'Huez
Some snowfall but a rise in temperature brings rain to resort level
Normally by this point of the season every day is a “deck chair” day here in Alpe d’Huez and the process of “protecting” the snow is well underway – not so this year. In the past 7 days we have had around 30cm of fresh snow at resort level and 60cm up at 3300m. Little top-ups fell on Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night and some on Saturday daytime as well. Some of the precipitation has fallen as rain below 2000m, but luckily for us regular top-ups have put right any damage that the rain has caused.
The only real “deck-chair” day this week was Wednesday and it was a stunningly sunny Spring day – other than that it’s been wintery in the main. This week looks being a settled cold week with little precipitation, for a detailed weather forecast check out our 7-day weather forecast.
The continuing snowfall now sees nearly 450cm of snow cover on the upper slopes of the Pic Blanc at 3300m, without doubt the best snow cover in my 10-years here in resort.
As you would expect after the recent snowfall and some rain the avalanche risk stands mainly at 3/5 across slopes above 2500m and 2/5 below 2500m – so as is always the case take care up on the hill in the current conditions.
After last week's reasonable snowfall, on-piste snow cover still stands, impressively for March, at:
| Alpe d’Huez resort 1850m | 220cm |
| Pic Blanc 3300m | 445cm |
| Auris village 1650m | 126cm |
| Auris Signal 2176m | 155cm |
| Villard Reculas 1500m | 130cm |
| Vaujany 1250m | 110cm |
| Oz-en Oisans 1350m | 110cm |
| Montfrais 1650m | 150cm |
| Dome des Rousses 2800m | 250cm |
Off piste snow cover now stands at:
| Elevation | North | South |
| 2500m | 460cm | 320cm |
| 2000m | 310cm | 290cm |
| 1500m | 165cm | 90cm |
| 1000m | 5cm | 0cm |
With fresh snowfall the off-piste conditions remain on the whole pretty good, especially considering it is late March, if a little tracked out but even the tracked areas are still providing some good ankle deep conditions, particularly higher up.
Snow cover still extends down to an elevation of around 1300m, which is still lower than all of the piste areas here in resort. Very often towards the end of March some of the lower areas in Vaujany, MontFrais and Maronne can start to shut down, but not so this year as the great snow cover continues, and as has been the case this season the whole of the Grande Domain ski area remains in tip-top shape as April approaches.
Today we had 66 lifts in operation (out of 69) and these were serving some 102 pistes (out of 103) with the only exception being red run Stade Montfrais, over in Vaujany, that was being used by the local ski club (as is often the case, especially at weekends). Lift queues remain nice and short and the pistes are on the whole nice and quiet.
Of these 102 open pistes - 27 are green, 31 are blue, 27 are red and 17 are black. So there continues to be something for everybody with plenty of choice at all elevations, as has been the case all season thanks to the great snow cover.
A few of the pistes are marked as for reserved “pour bon skieurs uniquement” (for good skiers only) these are black runs Fuma (over in Auris) and Balcons and Balme here in resort (up at the top of the Pic Blanc at 3300metres) – this is mainly due to their mogully terrain. The Sarenne black run continues to be in great condition for its entire length.
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. In addition to these XC trails there are 36km of walking trails open, thankfully on the whole their condition remains excellent mainly due the constant top-ups of fresh snow that put right the damage of the intermittent rain that we have been experiencing for the past week or so.
As Spring fast approaches the days continue to stretch here now, and with sunrise this morning at 06.43 and sunset at 18:44 – we had 12 hours and 01 minutes of daylight today – the first time this year that we have had more light than dark!
