Minimum altitude: 932 meters
Distance: 28.3 km
Slope Aspect: South
Vertical Climbed: 363 meters (1,191 feet)
Vertical Descended: 363 meters
I had to drop the boy off early for his ski but to the Alps so decided to take advantage of the early start to do some cross country skiing and cover a bit more distance. The drive was a bit of a chore as I took the National to avoid arriving while it was still dark. It was just getting light a little after 8 but there were already a couple of early birds on the loipe. I was amazed at how much snow there still was after a week of tropical temperatures and heavy rain. The snowpack was saturated yesterday but the overnight cold had frozen the water and the trails were in not bad condition, at least where there was no tree cover. Most of the runs were open with just the far north, after the farms, closed. I set off around the 12km red, initially a bit rock and roll with the frozen, lumpy snow but where it opened out around le Mortier it was excellent with the sun just creeping above the horizon.
I took the red back to the trail head. A fast run past farms and woodlands and it was possible to crust ski on the meadows. Time for another loop but this time via the blue climb to the Mortier cross roads. At the end I tried the Petite Verte but in the woods it was sheet ice and not really fun. It wasn't officially open but had tracks. What do they say about following tracks?
-5.5C at the car park at 8.30. Hard snow but they'd run a rattrack over it to break up the surface to make it safe to ski. One or two patches of ice. Off piste crust skiing was excellent, a frozen base with 1 or 2 cm of fresh snow. Although there is snow on the fields and tracks at 930 meters just 30 meters lower down it was green fields.
