It’s amazing how you can arrange a weekend away in a foreign country within a matter of hours, but that’s what happened when James was offered two tickets to England v. Samoa in Nantes last week. By the end of the day we had checked out flights and booked a ferry (on the basis that if a hotel room wasn’t available we would still have somewhere to sleep! The following day we found a room available (obviously just released by organised tour company or sponsor – right in the centre of Nantes.

The second half of the week was a curious mix of January skiing with a fair bit of March sun. The amount of powder about plus the cold temperatures were how they should have been at the beginning of the season. The light was that of spring, not winter. If the wind stopped a restaurant in a sunny spot became balmy.

The best quality snow was up ay Le Fornet. Thigh deep powder in some off-piste places. Having done a little bit of off-piste, particularly in La Rosiere, I now look at it completely differently, and became aware of quite how much of readily accessible, decent but not too steep off-piste there is there. Skiing down making lovely shapes in the powder was superb. I did get a little carried away. I went down one slope that wasn’t that steep at all, and was really quite deep. I came to a halt as it flattened out. The next 15 to 20 minutes were spent by me trying to get about 3 yards in thigh deep soft fluffy powder. Absolutely nothing to push against. Exhausting!

Woke to find that the snow had carried on all night. Apparently there was a break in the dumping, no so as you would notice from the evidence. The car was buried even more than the previous evening, and our little bit of La Daille looked all alpine and chocolate box-like. Actually, I was woken by all the activity of the local authorities clearing the roads and if that wasn’t enough, the avalanche blasting started.

It was a bit of a shame really, I was up before breakfast but this was not going to be an early start day. All the lifts were shut at the normal opening time, with a progressive opening planned as things got sorted

Val d’Isere Files

Yup! It’s a third skiing holiday. This time I’ve gone skiing with Eddie. Were staying in La Daille, Val d’Isere, in Chalet Crystal 4 with Ski Beat. Eddie came down by Eurostar – those who know him won’t be surprised about that at all. I booked rather late. I could have flown from Manchester, but thought better of it and drove down.

It’s a long drive to do on your own, but driving down during the day after a good (enough) night’s sleep is a piece of cake. The lack of French half term holiday traffic helped. It took me under 9 hours to get from Calais to Bourg St Maurice station, where after a short pause, Eddie appeared!

Sunday 11th March 2007 – Back in St Albans

As I have already noted, the weather in the Alps can certainly change quickly. Each day this week was different to the previous. As for the end of the week, Thursday was low level cloud and zero visibility. Frankly is quite depressing and was the principal cause of a very long lunch – which was quite nice. There is still a lot of accessible off-piste on the La Rosiere side. It was more spring-like rather than powder though, heavier and not much fun in zero viz.

Wednesday 7th March 2007

The last few days have certainly been different. Monday was pretty much zero visibility. Tuesday was blue sky but extremely windy, really quite cold. It snowed overnight and today, Wednesday, was blue sky and powder snow. The best skiing we’ve had this year.

Chalet Papillon, Les Eucherts, La Rosiere

Chalet Papillon is a new building which actually contains six chalets, a sauna and a crèche. It sits about 2 minutes walk from a bend in the road from which you can traverse to the piste down to the Eucherts Express chair. The return home in the evening is to the same point.

Les Eucherts is not in the centre of La Rosiere but is served by a free bus (and later in the evenings a free taxi) or a stroll through the woods. The route is well marked and also doubles as a sled park in the evenings with small children (and some not so small) taking advantage of the undulating path.

Monday 5th March 2007

The view as you go over into Italy is spectacular, apparently. Low cloud and snow on and off all day meant we didn't see very much. The snow was great though. Highlight was a choccy stop, and the most OTT hot chocolates, while it snowed steadily outside.
This was in the mountain restaurant at the bottom of the La Fourclaz express chair in the La Thuile area. It's a really nice cosy place.

After a tense start to winter, snow has started falling on the alps, and La Tania in particular. The prospects of a decent amount of skiing have drastically improved!!!

Everything from cracks in the pavement and the Bolivian national debt through to a flower blooming late in the year is blamed on global warming. Along with those goes the late start to the snow fall in the alps, which has been pretty late for the last couple of years. Now, I have an opinion about man over-stating his effect on the planet and the whole process of increase in pollutants leading to change in climate being on such a longer timescale anyway as to make to current hysteria in the press rather strange. However, if snow ain't there it ain't there, whether that's due to Samatha driving the kids to school in Fulham in the X5, sunspots, a tilt to the earth's axis or simply one of those things that periodically happens. Still, it looks like the season is now starting.