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Val Thorens Snow Report: 12th March 2013

Superb conditions on piste

featured in Snow report Author Gemma Hunt, Val Thorens Reporter Updated

The good news is that the snow is ace! The other good news is that the pistes are quiet! This makes for a very happy Gem indeed..... I have to admit these reports are much harder to write when the snow is good but I will do my best!

So, from last week's frustrations of lift queues and limited resort access, I was finally rewarded on Friday. As my Chalet is based at around 1,000m I did wake to the horrible sound of rain on the windows. Ever the optimist I rounded my two most enthusiastic guests and headed out bright and early. The rest of the guests (and luckily for us, the rest of the Three Valleys) all decided to give it a miss. I am just glad they did. For the first time last week we had no lift queues and quiet runs. The added bonus on top was the rain was falling as snow and we had powdery pistes - a nice surprise and great end to the week.

It was cold at points and we did hit some really icy sections. The most comedic moment was seeing one of my guests slide down the piste on his back, skis in the air. Luckily he was ok and he certainly entertained all of us on the piste. Especially as there was a guy doing exactly the same manoeuver just a short way down.

After a busy week, perhaps too much vin blanc and not enough sleep I did eventually also hit the wall myself for the first time this season. I normally manage to tire my guests out after a days skiing and they are tucked up in bed by 9pm. I think the record for my falls on the top section of the piste was four - every time I stood up I fell back down. Not my finest hour! I was certainly glad of the option for the lift down. Boarding in powder is fun, but knackering.

I was wary about how busy the resort would be this week when I struggled to pull my car out of the village onto the main Val Thorens road due to the volume of traffic on Saturday. To my relief it seems it is just Paris holidays this week, whereas last week there were two areas of France on holiday creating the piste congestion.

Having woken up to blue skies and birds singing over the past few weeks, I was more than surprised to wake up and see the biggest snowflakes falling yesterday morning and jumped out of bed like a child at Christmas.

The snow turned into bad visibility as I headed up the mountain and I was really not sure what type of day myself and my guests would be in for. I decided that we might be able to get above the cloud by heading up to Val Thorens. It was not looking good on the Cote Brun lift however at the top I saw the slight glimmer of what looked like sunshine. I decided the best plan would be to board down to Val Thorens, take a coffee stop and hope that the sun shone through. To my delight the plan worked. We had an absolutely amazing day. The pistes are superb right now. We did not queue for a lift once and had a great play around up on the Val Thorens slopes.

The temperatures were constantly changing throughout the day. There were goggles on, goggles off, sunglasses on, layers on, layers off. It was however really lovely to have all types of weather in one day as the end result was snowy pistes and sun on the face. Perfect.

There are light snow showers forecast for the next couple of days. Then Thursday looks like it will be very refreshing with temps at around -30 with windchill. Winds are up at around 25km/h at the higher points in resort so it is likely to be limited skiing once again.

In the meantime though I will make the most of the fantastic March conditions as there is not long left now…

Stats

Snow Report
  • Alt. Resort: 2300m

  • Alt. Summit: 3230m

  • High Temp.: -11

  • Alt. High Temp.: 2300m