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Val Thorens Snow Report: 14th March 2013

Dogs, coffees, trainers and Fools

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

I cannot believe it is March - where is the usual slush and early finishes to the day? Nowhere to be seen....Right now in Val Thorens the temps are low, the snow is good and there is more snow due.

Activities have been fairly relaxed over the past couple of days. To be honest, not that much snowboarding has been done. A friend has unfortunately had a knee injury since the beginning of the season so skiing for her is a no-go. With the sun shining on Tuesday we opted for a stroll around Plan d’eau with the beautiful Balloo – Ski Talini’s adorably cute puppy, and I am not even a dog person. There is so much snow around the lake that we had to opt for sitting on top of the picnic table to eat our lunch as that was the only part peeking out.

Following our not so strenuous stroll we decided to head just a little further up to a recent find, Chez Pepe Nicolas. This restaurant is just above Plan d’eau and has a beautiful terrace looking towards Val Thorens. The tables are sectioned into different areas with unique furniture and cosy throws to keep the chill off. A fantastic place. Still a little peckish after my picnic lunch at the lake I opted for a café gourmand. Once it arrived, a second was swiftly ordered by Daisy who could just not resist! It was delicious. I can fully recommend it here - a lovely place to spend the afternoon sampling locally made produce with the added bonus of the possibility of skiing directly to the door.

Wednesday was an incredibly varied day. I am currently training for the Leeds half marathon and wanted to up my running sessions. As the sessions are getting longer it is harder to fit them in around skiing. The guests were horrified on Monday night to hear that after having snowboarded all day I was going for a run. So, yesterdays bright idea was that I would get up early to make sure I could run for a couple of hours and then still have the rest of the day to play with. I left the Chalet at 7am, stopped at 8 A Huit to purchase a pain au chocolat, laced up my trainers, iPod on and off I went. It was absolutely freezing – literally, I think it was around -5. Luckily I had brought my outer jacket and gloves as they were more than needed. The cold did mean that there were no breaks up the hills! It took over an hour for the sun to rise and warm me up. I did manage to keep going for a good two hour stint so was pretty pleased with myself. It is easy to keep motivated when there are amazing mountain views around every corner. I am not sure the half marathon will be quite so picturesque in the metropolis of Leeds. I am also pretty sure I won’t come face to face with a piste basher as I did on this occasion!

So run complete, I then met up with a couple of people for a coffee in the sunshine and watched the clouds coming up the valley. It is great to be able to see what weather you are due so you can enjoy the blue sky whilst it lasts.

My day was then broken up by a call from one of my guests to say they were unfortunately in a taxi to the medical centre. Never a call I like to receive. It turned out that they have a broken coccyx – ouch! After a very careful drive back to the Chalet I then had to shoot up to Val Thorens for the Misguided Fools party at La Folie Douce. It was bright sunshine when the event began but ended in thick cloud and light snow. The temperature plummeted and I was glad of just a short snowboard back down to the car as visibility was terrible. The event was a success and continued at Malaysia into the early hours. I was however safely tucked up in bed having a well needed early night preparing for (hopefully) a great days snowboarding today.

I'll let you know how it goes....

Stats

Snow Report
  • Alt. Resort: 2300m

  • Alt. Summit: 3230m

  • High Temp.: -11

  • Alt. High Temp.: 2300m