le Grand Rocher this morning:

There is about the same amount of snow as at the start of November but the quality is not as good below 2000 due to the strong southerly winds and rain episodes.

It is skiable from around 1300 meters (lower in certain cases) but from 1300-1700 the base is very humid due to the rain and has not yet frozen. The wider the skis the better. From 1500 meters there is about 10-15cm of fresh snow on this base. From 1700m the base is firm enough with 20-30cm of fresh powder. Very skiable even if the snowpack is a bit uneven in places (large snow pillows). Higher up the strong winds have stripped ridgelines and summits.

The recent snow fell directly on the ground below 2500 m on southerly aspects and consists of two principal layers. A humid base and a layer of fresher powder snow. On Northern aspects this new snow has fallen on a weak layer of snow left from early November. The strong south-westerly winds have formed slabs on these slopes. The principal danger is to be found at higher altitudes.

I was resort skiing today with the boy. It rained quite heavily on and off below 1800m and the off piste, such that I sampled, was very heavy going… probably not bad if you had 100mm underfoot. Temperature at 1785m given as 8.2C on the resort weather station, which is warm, and it is still raining in the valley so the snowline must be quite high… or the thermometer is broken (clutching at straws here). Forecast is for more rain to altitude early in the week. Which is not particularly good news unless we get a cold spell to consolidate this base.

Raining at 2200 meters now in at least two spots in the French Northern Alps (Val Thorens and in the Belledonne). Looks set to continue at around that level for the next couple of days.

It was raining at 2400m yesterday afternoon in the Southern Alps. However the zero isotherm dipped back down to around 1100m overnight from midnight, unfortunately the rain had pretty much stopped by then.

Things not looking good in the 1000-1500m range. 5cm net loss of snow at 2100m in the last 12 hours. 5cm net gain at 2400m. A lot of snow drifting as the wind swung round from S to N and gained strength (80km/h). Expect new slabs on northern slopes above 2200m.

... For future snowy winters and to let our children and grand-children enjoy skiing as we do, support the WWF campaign ‘Vote Earth’ for Copenhaguen:
http://bit.ly/5HOQgr
And you may geo-localize your vote on mountains, may be it’ll bring snow http://bit.ly/4QfHp8

Toured from the Parking at Casserouse (1410m) to the Grand Vans (2440m). This route is behind the “Olympic” ski resort of Chamrousse above Grenoble. Whenever we mention Chamrousse we have to mention the Olympic bit, despite the fact it was like a century ago or something.

Anyway the Casserouse piste (Olympic Slalom Run) was closed and I’m not surprised. From 1400 to 1650 meters the snow is in very poor condition despite the fact this is a shaded slope. There is a sea change at 1650 meters and from here on up the snow is largely skiable but some zones have been stripped bare by the high winds.

Above 2000m the snow is pretty good but bare areas close to summits and ridgelines. On the way down there was some powder in wind sheltered areas from 2400 -> 2100. Snow very hard otherwise. Back in the Casserouse couloir (which was bizarely indicated as open to piste skiers) there was 5cm of powder from 2000 -> 1800 on hard snow. From 1800m -> 1650 the snow was soft and very skiable although it was now after 17h30 and I was skiing on my LED headlamp then back below 1650 meters the snow was pretty suck with lots of rocks although strangely the headlamp focusses the mind a lot and these are easy to ski around.

Despite the afternoon and sunny weather the wind north wind meant that the surface didn’t transform as it had on Wednesday. This left a choice between some powder in sheltered areas and nasty icy hard snow. Well not really a choice. The snow is very hard, there is only around 30cm at 2000m but it is like ice and would be a great base if it ever snows again. You need ski crampons at the mo on south facing slopes.

Regarding avalanches. I can’t see much risk below 2200m. Some surface hoar in the forest around 1700m. Around 2100-2300 there was “polystyrene” (graupel). Small round ice crystals that can form a sliding surface. Around 2200> the snow broke away in thin slabs in places. Lots of wind transport from N -> S in evidence.

If you like mid-winter skiing you will enjoy things but best conditions on upper slopes.

Chamrousse Sunset

Getting dark, the Casserouse is the large gorge center right by the 2nd pylon of the chair lift

Casserousse Olympic Black with Didcot’s twin town down the valley

ps thanks Eric, I signed that. Can’t do any harm. Although I might be on a database somewhere labelled as an eco-terrorist.

WWF is more of a reputable organization but true, you never know how you could be labelled…

While snowflakes are falling outside, 20 min of ski dream to watch for this Sunday pm: North
Check the site, movie can be HD streamed or downloaded, nice photography too!

Some pictures of an in resort (to a yet to be opened area) trip at Avoriaz. A good morning out, no rocks hit.

2 to 5cm of powder over a rock hard base. Avalanche risk - not likely!

And a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkokGfEM9PQ

Snowing lightly in Grenoble at 6am and in Geneve at 8.30 although we seem to have low clouds so it may just be the valleys that are getting some.

It snowed most of the day Friday so I didn’t head out but Saturday looked promising with around 30cm of fresh. The idea was to ski the north bowl of the Orionde, one of our old favourites but always a bad idea early season due to the amount of brushwood that blocks the lower part of the trail.

Anyway the 30cm quickly turned into 50cm of fresh powder and we ended up breakiing 700m of trail in this stopping just below the summit due to the viz. and strong wind.

We then skied back down the n/e bowl, one at a time as the snow was a bit cohesive near the top, viz made communication tricky though. Here is Guy

and Anny

To sum up

i. Very very cold, maybe a windchill of -20c? (Tignes was -18C on the glacier)
ii. The snow was very very light, Valdez light. It was probably only 100g/m3. It was not sticking well to the base which was sometimes frozen and sometimes humid.
iii. The N/E bowl from 1950 - 1650m was well filled. If you had freeride skis with 90-100mm it would have been excellent. However due to the lack of base I’d taken my 65mm rock skis so touched the very uneven base on every turn. The lightness of the powder meant it offered no resistance when the skiing was steep so little breaking on turns, great if you wanted to ski at Mach 2.0 but the bottom of the bowl was blocked by trees so this was less of an option.
iv. All the stones, rocks, treestumps, shrubs were completely covered by this blanket of fine snow, so you had trouble seeing them but the lightness of the snow mean you touched them all the time. We spoke to a guy coming down from the Cime de la Jasse (they’d not gone to the top due to the north wind creating a perceived avalanche risk on this south facing bowl, this is why we’d gone north) who’d broken an edge on his skis.

So despite what seems like ideal, once in a winter, powder snow they were not ideal from our viewpoint. The first bowl was good and the skiing on the closed road was like a piste but we were unaccustomed to the Alaskan powder and the lack of base was a nightmare. It was also so cold that snow was sticking to the base of our skis (have a good wax job).

Forecast is good weather today and Monday then rain to 1800m on Tuesday.

So today was a rapid tour to the Pas de la Coche in the Belledonne before the tempest hit (130km/h winds forecast for midday and a brutal temperature rise). Already the snow was slabby in places and poorly bonded to the hard base:

The wind had removed most of the snow from trees and this photo of the Jas de Lievres shows that it was stripping snow from any outcrop that stuck out too far, in this case the transport was from south->west.

A small pit at 1950 m on a South facing slope. About 40cm of snow consisting of a 5cm->10cm layer of depth hoar, a 10-15cm layer of ice and 20cm of fresh snow.

-2C at the surface

+4C at ground level, well it was a S facing slope, that gives 6C/40cm or a TG of around 15c/m, plenty to create more depth hoar.

Just opposite and a north facing slope and the picture is more complex

30cm of fresh snow, a 15cm layer of hard snow, a soft layer than a hard base. The pit was around 80cm and I didn’t dig down to ground level. Wind was now too strong to take temperature readings.

In both pits the surface snow was poorly bonded to the base. Despite the depth hoar the hard second layer of snow was pretty stable. It would take some considerable load to break all the way to ground level on the South slope. I would imagine that higher up you could get some slides that move 50-80cm of snow and we’ve heard of a couple of such slides yesterday.

The Briancon area has had 80cm of fresh snow over the last 24 hours. Probably blowing in from Italy. La Grave got some of the snow too.

An update from the Portes du Soleil.

Thanks to some very cold conditions in the middle of the month everything from the valley floor up, with artificial snow cover, is white and varies from good to icy, from 1500m to 1800m the natural snow starts to appear and any piste above 1800m is in good condition. These observations seem to match quite closely the full descritption from the “ Bulletin neige et avalanches”.

http://france.meteofrance.com/france/MONTAGNE?MONTAGNE_PORTLET.path=montagnebulletinneige/DEPT74

I was out briefly today on the piste with the kids, I haven’t been out touring (was back in the UK for a few days) but even though there is a bit of “fresh” out there it is hiding some fairly hard lumps!

I’ll know more tomorrow but would guess you can tour from about 1400m but there won’t be “good” cover until 1800m+

If you have a look at

http://www.skitour.fr/topos/dernieres-sorties.php and

http://www.camptocamp.org/outings/list/orderby/date/order/desc

You’ll see that not much is being done around here at the moment.

Saturday I was up at Chamrousse with junior. 5cm of fresh snow had brought chaos to the resort as Parisians, Lyonnais etc fought it out for the resort center parking with cars poorly equipped for the parking.

This picture is deceptive, the pistes were very busy with lots of out of control skiers.

This is an aerial view of the resort slopes from today

So today I was ski guiding on the Taillefer, the Crete de Broufier to be precise. I love the contrast between green valleys and snow, here we can see Grenoble in the background.

and some 950 meters of vertical later we are on the Crete

conditions were chilly and a bit windy with a lot of snow movement to the Pas de la Mine which leads to the Taillefer summit

it didn’t look too inviting and one group who were ahead of use turned back

This looks like an easier way to the summit

The crete isn’t steep and we had 10cm of fresh on a firm, somewhat icy base, but it was some of the best conditions in the whole I’ve had this season

here the boys are enjoying themselves

The slopes steepen as you ski back to the forest on a section called the cote de Salieres. This is potentially the most avalanche prone slope but was stable today.

a quick look over to the Alpe de Grande Serre, the couloirs are looking very dry still

Forecast is now for rain for two days to 2200m with a return to snow at lower levels near the end of teh week. The snow line in the Isere varies but if you don’t want to rip your skis to bits you’d better be looking at open north facing slopes above 1500m.

Avalanche risk is High 4/5 in the Savoie, in some parts of the Hautes-Alpes and above 2000-2300m in the Haute-Savoie. There is a lot of precipitation at the moment. At altitude this is falling as snow giving up to 80cm on a weak base and lower down it is overloading the snowpack causing purging.