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Val Thorens Snow Report: 12th January 2012

The sun shines on Val Thorens

featured in Snow report Author Andy Wilson, Updated

The weather this week is just flat out fantastic. With near constant cloudless sky and very low winds, this is the best it has been since the season began. Moreover, after the snowfall of last week there is plenty of luscious powder around and the conditions of the pistes are fantastic.

In honour of the glorious weather, on Monday we decided to venture outside of Val Thorens with which I have become very familiar over the last month. After upgrading my Val Thorens lift pass to access the rest of the Three Valleys (costing €24) we began the morning with a fun descent to Meribel, accessed via the Bouquetin cabal car at the top of Plein Sud. We took the Lac De La Chambre red piste which was extremely fast and exciting. Following that, we took the leisurely Ours blue run. It was a pleasant variation to snowboard through some trees and I was struck by the serenity of the place which was looking particularly beautiful in the sunshine. We took the lengthy gondola, Pas Du Lac, in order to make the descent to Courchevel 1650. We took the long red run called Creux which was brilliantly fast but the condition of the snow got icier the closer we got to the town.

On the whole the condition of the snow outside of Val Thorens was largely inferior, particularly for boarders. With patches of ice, I found myself pining for the fresh, soft pistes of our town which we spent the following days revelling in. Continuing the trend of last week, our quest was to explore and seek out some gnarly off piste areas. On Tuesday we spent the afternoon on the western slopes of the resort doing just that. At the top of the Bouquetin, to the left of the cable car station, there are some exhilarating off-piste areas surrounding the currently closed Triton red slope. With an enthusiastic group, we found some decent cliff drops in the area, some easier and less intimidating than others. At the very top there is a very narrow and bumpy ridge path which, if you can muster the courage and are not prone to vertigo, is very fun to traverse. It is also from here that you can access some of the cliff drops and throw yourself down the mountain. Like the areas that we sampled in Orelle last week, this particular slope very much gives the feeling that you are riding on the top of a mountain. Further down in the area between the Pluviomètre and Plein Sud pistes, there are some more extremely nice rolling powder fields which are excellent for getting some serious speed. The terrain here has a good variety of inclination and it’s a good place to source some decent lips in the snow if you want to get some air or practice your freestyle. I would suggest that if you are keen on advancing your off-piste riding, this is a good, fun area to do so as it offers a variety of levels of difficulty and the powder is nice and soft after last week’s snowfall.

The forecast is still predicting full days of sunshine as far as Tuesday the 17th. Whilst it is, of course, subject to change, it looks as though this stretch of beautiful weather is going to continue. Since there doesn’t seem to be any snow headed our way, we can count ourselves lucky for the heavy fall that we experienced at the end of last week. The temperature is hovering around just below freezing point with a high of around -4 °C and a low of -21 °C on Saturday night. It will be windiest between now and the weekend but that is also staying at the lower end of the spectrum with maximum speeds of 15km/h tomorrow. Why not celebrate the sunshine by sampling some of the other exciting activities that the resort has to offer including snowshoe outings, tobogganing or even paragliding. Happy skiing!

Location

Map of the surrounding area