Thibaut had suggested we ski the Couloir en Virgule.

After a long morning x-country on Saturday we decided to have a cool 2 hours downhill skiing on Sunday.

The Desert d'Entremonts has around 30km of cross country runs prepared for skating and classic (claimed 45km but a number of kms are double counted in this figure).

I'd originally wanted to ski to the Charmant Som and return but the piste was not prepared 1km after the col so I skied over the link (in good condition) to the main pistes and took the big loop aroun

Rumour had it that le Sappey was opening up. Well it seems to have been a bit of rumour that also caught out one of the piste workers as the area had not been pisted.

Skiing was heavy going, snow was pisted this morning but by lunchtime it was like skiing fresh powder with skis sinking in 5cm as well as poles. The south loop was open and in good condition.

36:36 for the climb compared to my record of 32:20 (for both skating and classic). Not bad at all and my 6th best time. I put it down to better technique as well as fitness.

It had snowed about 20cm overnight, the pistes were a bit slow going, maybe a wax issue but generally in very good condition.

I wanted to check out what the weekend's record temperatures had done to the slopes. Quite a lot of snow had gone from the upper red piste, it was skiable last Friday but now was just bare earth.

I hadn't been out on my classic skis much so decided to climb to the Bergeries of Charmant Som.