UKC

Scheduled to go out to Morillon near Flaine on Boxing Day to ski. The conditions reports and forecasts don't look great so I am thinking of cancelling. Any more encouraging on the ground reports from that area, or more optimistic forecasts for the week following Christmas? Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

In reply to alastairmac: Super-grim at the moment, but there is skiing up at Flaine:

http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=113186&start=200

And there is a bit of hope that things might improve later this week (although no massive dump as yet):

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/MS_1047_ens.png

In reply to andy:
Thanks very much.

In reply to alastairmac:
We're all pinning our hopes on the expected snow currently forecast for Xmas day onwards - looks like 3-4 days of it.

Although I'm not in a big, high resort we should be skiing by now here. This morning I ran up one of my local mountains as far as 1600m and there was nothing save for a few patches of compacted snow in shady spots. Normally even just getting up there would be impossible in just trail shoes this time of year.

At least the forecast is now to stay cold - we had plenty of snow a few weeks back but it got so unseasonably warm everything below 2000m has melted away.

I use La Chaine Meteo site and app for French mountain weather and even in my remote little valley its pretty accurate. Unfortunately up in Morillon the outlook doesn't look so great.

http://montagne.lachainemeteo.com/meteo-alpes-du-nord/station-montagne/prev...

I did hear that in Les Gets and Morzine where there's no snow, and they're not letting people not staying there buy passes for Avoriaz, they're shuttling people up to Chamonix for the day. If you're going, are you hiring a car? Might be worth it and chase the snow if you can be bothered.

In reply to yorkshireman:
I think this warm spell is expected to pass on xmas day, then hopefully they can get the cannons working. I posted a link to the Avoriaz restrictions the other day - pre-bought passes, then people staying in the village get priority (and they're being very strict about proof that you're staying there) - so as you say people in Les Gets etc can't get passes - which does at least mean Avoriaz isn't as horrendous as it could be.

The snow expected for boxing day is expected to hit further east than Grand Massif, but there's another storm expected about new year that could bring something more substantial.

We're off to St Anton in three weeks, so whilst I wouldn't normally worry about having snow in mid-Jan it's all getting a bit close for comfort!

In reply to andy: Cheers guys. That's all really helpful.

In reply to alastairmac:

I hope you decided to come, masses of snow yesterday all the way down to Geneva so should be ok. That is if you managed to get here as the roads were pretty blocked up with traffic and snow. Classic put chains on half way up the hill and block it for everyone else behind

the Avoriaz rumour turned out to be a rumour as I had friends staying in Les Gets who bought a ski pass no problem. Portes du Soleil should be pretty much fully up and running by tomorrow hopefully.

Av risk is high so be careful if you are tempted to escape the pistes... It was super windy yesterday so the snow is very wind affected, and it was properly swirling around so even though it was a northerly stream it won't just be on southern aspect slopes there is wind slab... Be careful.

Happy skiing everyone!

In reply to alastairmac:

Just returned from Tignes through to Geneva airport. A 4 hr trip took nearly 8 hrs due to snow fall at all levels. Many of the lower parts of the resorts that were closed will open up.

Things looking loads better.

In reply to aligibb: The PdS started selling full area passes last Friday, I think - but the restrictions were certainly in place earler in the week, as some tour operators were bussing people to Grand Montets. There were apparently pisteurs on the ridge between Chatel and Lindarets at times stopping people without the right tickets from skiing down.

Anyway - it seems the sno drought is over, but it sounds utterly horrendous in the Tarentaise - guy on Snowheads left Rheims at 3am yesterday to "miss the traffic" and arrived in Ste Foy 24 hours later. Our first trip is to St Anton this year, and we're doing the airport transfer from Zurich by train - suspect there's a few thousand people who've still not got to Les Arcs etc who wished they'd done the same.

In reply to aligibb:


They did always say they would monitor activity to see if they could let any other passes go for sale - obviously a lot of people were put off by the poor conditions.

Apparently a lot of the utter carnage on the roads yesterday was down to freezing rain in the lower valleys which turned the roads into ice rinks. I was shocked at the reports of the number of people without snow chains, despite this weather being predicted weeks ago.

We've had around 70cm in the last 24 hours and its meant to carry on until Tuesday with temps of -19C on the way too. Luckily my neighbour lets me use his snow blower which has saved a lot of backache.

I just walked the dog up to our ski pistes and although its still closed, its been groomed and looks like good nick so should be open soon. I might snowshoe up and ski down at the end of the day but need to finish the DIY in the spare bedroom as we've got friends coming for NYE!

In reply to yorkshireman:
We're at Le Feclaz above Chambery &the roads are still pretty snowy and there ere a couple of families arriving as we were having a late breakfast who should have been here last night but the roads were to bad. But watching the TV it seems there's loads of drivers without chains (including lorries) & much of the problem was roads blocked by cars & lorries, even though the snow was predicted.