Val Thorens Snow Report: 20th January 2014

This weekend, a strong South-easterly Foehn wind shut some of the top lifts. This wind tends to affect the Val Thorens and Les Menuires valley much more than Méribel or Courchevel, hence the 3 Valley links to Val Thorens were closed for a day while all the other links and lifts were unaffected.

You will find out if a Foehn wind is due by listening to the weather and piste reports on the local radio station. You can also see the typical ‘roll’ of cloud it creates to the south-east. When you see this cloud looming, you know it’s best to ski in Méribel or Courchevel and avoid Val Thorens. On any blustery day, whatever the wind direction, it’s worth checking with the lift attendants before you ski out of your own valley. Make sure you will be able to get back again because a taxi home from the wrong valley is not cheap….

Thanks to the recent snowfalls, conditions on piste are much improved: the stones are mostly covered up and the hard snow has been much softened. In the past few days, we’ve enjoyed skiing in all areas of the Méribel and Courchevel valleys, making the most of the better visibility in the lower, wooded areas. The best snow of all, however, has been on the Courchevel side runs on la Saulire. I love this area thanks to its many steep runs, spectacular views, fast lifts and great snow. Most people tend to ski the same few runs on this mountain – the red run Saulire is a favourite with many and the newly re-graded blue run Creux is always very (sometimes too) popular. However, there are lots of other, lesser-known and tucked-away runs in this area which are well worth checking out.

Marmottes is wonderful in good snow: a long red of a constant gradient which offers beautiful views. One word or warning: avoid Marmottes late in the season as it gets lots of sunshine and can get baked hard.

Roches grises is always deserted and there is never a queue at the Creux noirs chairlift which serves it. This black is short but steep – great if you like a challenging run that isn’t too long.

Pylones is another steep black which faces north and keeps great snow on it. Very few people find the entrance to this run, so it is invariably quiet.

The black run Suisses is a love/hate piste: sometimes it is groomed and utterly gorgeous and sometimes scarily scraped and icy. I like to check out this run from the chairlift of the same name beforehand – if the skiers on it are standing around nervously or going sideways fast, I know to leave it for another day.

Moguls seem to have gone out of fashion in the past decade, overtaking by the burgeoning snowparks. But if bumps are your thing, you will usually find them on the blacks Bosses and M.

Finally, the greatest challenge in the 3 Valleys is Grand Couloir, a seriously scary black run which starts along a knee-shaking ridge and ends in a couloir. This is for real experts only.

If you can ski all these run in a morning, you have covered around 4,000 vertical metres and made great use of your liftpass. And then in the afternoon, you can tackle the many easier runs on the Méribel side of the Saulire. If you’ve still got any legs left, that is….