2 Alpes Snow Report: 6th January 2016
Half a metre over the weekend.
It's been a bit late in coming but the snow has finally arrived with a vengeance, dumping well over half a metre since the weekend and with pretty much constant snowfall predicted until well into next week.
The weekend's weather was largely grey and horrible, and high wind closed most of the upper slopes on Wednesday, but an unforeseen bluebird day on Tuesday brought people out in droves, making 2 Alpes look more like half term than a quiet week in January. And who could blame them - finally it looked like a ski resort, with snow even on the Bas des Pistes, which had been frankly a bit tragic looking three days previous. The Diable and Super D chairs were both running, and Cretes was negotiable on skis rather than in walking boots!
Runs from the top of the glacier down as far as midstation at 2600m are all in good condition, with plenty of loose powder around, although some of them (mainly in the Toura sector) are still narrower than usual and not following their normal path as the dameurs make the most of the snow that's there.
Further down the hill, things remain a little bit sketchy in places, though you can ski all the way to resort thanks to the much-publicised new blue run, which snakes its way down the front face between the Valentin and Diable2.
The blue run from Toura down to the Bellecombe chair was open for the first time this season, but is sprouting a few pebbles – better to keep to the track on the right hand side or cut through to Bellecome with the Sautet chair on your right and then drop into the run back towards Cretes from there.
The track from Bellecombe back to Cretes was in good condition apart from the odd icy patch on the bend, and while the black runs from there to resort remain closed, the new blue has been skiable for the past couple of weeks thanks to some kind of miracle involving snow cannon and a lot of hard work by the dameurs.
As you'd expect, there's not a lot in the way off off-piste skiing available at the moment, and you're quite likely to find that those tempting bits of powder here and there are still full of rocks. Optimists have been giving it a go nonetheless, and even getting away with it in places where the snow accumulates, but far too many of the tracks have clearly taken people over mud and stones, so unless you've got cash to burn on equipment repairs (or old rockhoppers you don’t care about) I'd steer clear for a while yet.
For the moment, Fee, Vallee Blanche and Thuit remain closed. These areas all had literally no snow on the ground at all until last weekend, so it's going to take a little while to build up a base there. As of Thursday a couple of the runs on Vallee Blanche were open, but I’d be inclined for the moment to stick to the glacier side and stay high, where the piste skiing is now in great shape.
The current forecast is for nearly two metres between now and the middle of next week, plus a major drop in temperature from the weekend onwards. With any luck this should be enough to open the rest of resort and even give us a bit of piste-side powder to mess with.
