More snow for Alpe d'Huez
Plenty of good skiing despite stormy weather
The recent run of unsettled weather has continued for the past few days here in Alpe d’Huez with loads of fresh snow. There were some glimpses of sunshine but, unfortunately, high winds led to intermittent lift closures.
We had fresh snow from Tuesday through to Sunday, over this period around 50cm fell at resort level (1850m) and 70/80cm up on the higher slopes of the Pic Blanc (3300m). This snowfall was accompanied by strong winds and some very poor visibility which has led to lift and piste closures this week. Today saw the closure of all the lifts above 2700m such was the wind and poor visibility. The snow looks set to continue through Monday, although lighter, after which the weather looks set to settle down a bit.
After all the recent (and ongoing) snowfall avalanche risk stands at 4/5 across the whole ski area – which is high. All weekend the slopes have been reverberating with the familiar “boom” of Sata Ski's avalanche control explosives in order to secure the area. This will no doubt carry on for the next few days. If a slope is closed, it's closed for a good reason! Don’t ignore closed signs or warning signs! Don’t make their jobs any more difficult than it already is at the moment!
Freeze level has risen to around 1300m after having been around 800m during the recent snowfall. It looks set to remain at around this level throughout Monday when a bit more snow is forecast. The freezing level looks set to rise up to around 2500metres from Tuesday onwards.
On-piste conditions across the whole of the Grand Domaine ski area are exceptionally good and all the pistes have excellent snow cover, even the very lowest slopes around Montfrais, Vaujany and Maronne at an elevation of 1500metres. Hopefully, this week will see a drop in the winds and allow the continued opening of all the lifts so as to allow full access to the whole ski area.
On-piste snow cover currently stands at:
| Alpe d’Huez resort (1850m) | 210cm |
| Pic Blanc (3300m) | 240cm |
| Auris village (1650m) | 115cm |
| Auris Signal (2176m) | 135cm |
| Villard Reculas (1500m) | 102cm |
| Vaujany (1250m) | 80cm |
| Oz-en Oisans (1350m) | 80cm |
| Montfrais (1650m) | 120cm |
| Dome des Rousses (2800m) | 200cm |
In over a decade here in resort I have never seen such snow depths, such is the cover this year. Snow clearance has been virtually non-stop in Alpe d'Huez since mid-December and it looks set to continue for a good while yet.
Off-piste cover now stands at:
| Elevation | North | South |
| 2500m | 300cm | 260cm |
| 2000m | 210cm | 180cm |
| 1500m | 110cm | 75cm |
| 1000m | 25cm | 5cm |
Today there were 56 lifts open here (out of 68 = 82%) across the whole Grande Domain ski area and these are serving 85 pistes (out of 103 = 83%). Of these 85 pistes, 29 are green, 27 are blue, 23 are red and 6 are black. Given the incredible snow cover at the moment all of the slopes are in great condition. Lift queues have remained nice and short this week, which is always good news and this should remain the case for the next 2 weeks before the busy February half-term school holidays get going.
There are currently 32km of Nordic ski trails open (out of 39km = 82%) and 31km of perfectly groomed walking trails open as well (out of 37km = 84%).
Whilst the slopes have been relatively quiet this week the resort itself has been busy hosting the 21st International Comedy Film Festival which continues to bring a huge number of French “cinephiles” to resort.
The days continue to lengthen here in resort, sunrise this morning was 08:07 and with sunset at 17:25, we had 9 hours and 18 minutes of daylight today.
