Try to remember a kind of September… with 50cm of snow at 2000m!
Today I took a tour, on skis of course, to the summit of the Dome de Pravouta (Chartreuse range, France), the mountain directly behind my house. I’d last skied this on the 30th of May when we had some exceptional late season snow.
The skiable snow begins around 1500 meters with around 20cm. On the praries this dense snow is just enough to ski. The cold snap has caught some flowers on the hop. No sign of the bees that were buzzing around a few days ago, they must be keeping warm in their hives.
The snow depth increased to around 40cm by the summit. I first skied half way down the east face then retraced to ski the south ridge which seemed to have the best snow conditions. I then reskinned to ski this again. Only 500 meters of vertical but you don’t touch ground with this dense covering.
I saw another couple of ski tourers heading up the mountain.
Meteo France is saying 50cm at 2000m with some accumulations of 1 m. There was quite a strong southerly wind blowing from the south at midday and with the thaw skiers and snowshoers should take care above 2000m. As the ground is warm the snow doesn’t adhere to grass or flagstones.
Valley temperatures should reach 20C tomorrow which will melt most of the fresh snow at low to mid altitudes but some more cold weather is expected next week.
