Minimum altitude: 1,342 meters
Distance: 41 km
Slope Aspect: Various
Vertical Climbed: 5,365 meters (17,603 feet)
Vertical Descended: 5,371 meters
This morning we headed up to Les 7 Laux ski resort. With Tot nursing a bad back and me still feeling yesterday’s effort from helping a neighbour move furniture, we didn’t get going until around 10:30. By then, the sun was already beating down hard. It was close to 20°C in the valley, and it genuinely felt like early summer; we’d gone from winter to summer in just a couple of days. Even insects were out, buzzing around in the mountains.
We started by skiing down toward Le Pleynet, but the east-facing slopes were already too warm to be enjoyable. Time for plan B: head over to the west-facing terrain above Prapoutel. That turned out to be a good call, as those slopes had held onto the overnight refreeze and were still in decent condition.
We wrapped things up with the classic Vallon du Pra run; around 1,000 meters of vertical through a beautiful alpine valley. The entrance, which is often a brutal mogul field, was relatively tame today thanks to lower snow volumes. However, further down the slope had taken a hit from the heat, with the top 5–10 cm turning to heavy mush. Ironically, the mogul sections offered the best skiing.
A final descent from the summit down to Pipay rounded out the day nicely, though it required some care to navigate the growing berms of slush.
Very warm, spring snow but some ice in the shades. Vallon de Pra was soggy snow, skiable in the bumps but not so great where the slope was more open.
