The view from............ Val d'Isere and the Espace Killy

A snowHead

Sun

Yea so today was sunny, snow was decent and was saddened about the deaths in the Manchet.

Found some nice flat snow off piste.

TTFN

Ps sorry not in the mood tonight!

A snowHead

Understandable x

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Understandable,

Different being at ground-zero when tragedy strikes - easy to comment reading about it on a forum.

Take care, ski safe everyone

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@Steve Angus, fair enough

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@Steve Angus, very sad day for Val D'Isere. Take care.

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More details:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUta1aFDLKe/?igsh=MzRrazRucDF5eDAw

Posted in the interests of learning from a tragic event

After all it is free

@NoMapNoCompass, is there a written synopsis?

@holidayloverxx, Not a lot that’s new news, some fancy graphics and a statement about a lot of the slope being greater than 30 degs.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Down day

I slept well last night thankfully and the sleeping pill certainly helped!

The kids were out the door at a decent time to get to skiing and Clare was on a chalet start so that just left me and the MIL at home. I took my normal Sunday eggs on toast treat a day early as im working all day tomorrow. It was a very lazy start to the day.

With cricket and Mens GS from the Olympics both on TV to watch it was a bit of a sport fest for a couple of hours - lovely stuff.

I headed into town about 1130 with the MIL as we were meeting up with the kids after their morning skiing for lunch at the Sun Bar. By now the clouds had rolled in a little and there was a slight breeze... the promised snow flurries did arrive this evening and we should have some freshies by the morning!

Bit of a slap up lunch followed and then Olivia and the MIL headed into town for a spot of shopping - nothing serious just a general potter mainly.... that meant Ben and I had about 90 mins to kill before the pm Club for him restarted (Olivia was only doing 1/2 a day obviously). So he did a little bit of bum boarding as I brought that with me but he decided he wanted to ski a little... so I was happy to let him do a lap on the Rogoney but then he was bored with that so next up he did a couple of laps on the Bellevarde chair.... I was proud Dad watching him tackle the bumps and choppy snow coming down the Face. I could spot him top to bottom in case something happening and I also told the liftie I was at the bottom in case he had a little accident getting on / off the lift too!

So after he restarted club at 1400 I headed home and did a few jobs before Olivia etc got home.

It was a relaxed afternoon all in all thats for sure and when Ben was back from Club we played a board game and that was all before Clare got home from work!

Tomorrow the weather should be good for most of the day and im off piste all day with a 20 year old (think it was). And then the fun and games will start (again) with a big old storm rolling in tomorrow night and most of Monday - a lot more snow is forecast once again.

What a pretty chilled day it has been before it all kicks off for another week. In other news Clares brother and family all rolled into town this evening - what a long day it was for them and our kids will be spending the day with their cousins tomorrow - they cant wait! Clare and I are working all day so the MIL is in charge of the kids outside of their skiing time with their cousins!

TTFN

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

How lovely to have all the family descend, Steve. Hope you all have a great time!

snow reports

Hiya Steve.

Thanks for posting even when you don't feel like it. Hope you and yours are all ok. Sometimes living the dream is a bit harder than you expect, but that's life. Love to all of you there. Hope to see you soon.

Owlette - thanks so much!
gixxerniknik - thanks so much! Yes its not always idealistic thats for sure! As ive said many times before people dont always realise that its NOT a holiday for us - work, work, work and the actual sliding bit is by FAR the easiest part of the job / lifestyle but actually makes up such a small part of the job and life!

Lovely conditions

A very easy start to the day... the kids were due to ski with their cousins all day so the MIL was in charge of getting them out the door, accompanying them etc. Clare was a 0930 start as was I.

The sun was shining and there was a few cm's (maybe 10) of new snow out there. Luckily the temps were colder which promised some light dry powder and no wind (at skiing altitude although there was some decent wind at 3000+m).

I headed into town and we got going about 10 mins late. There was a lot of excited people about the place given the first day of half term and the weather (and the weather to come) let alone the weather to come. I had 'C' who was excited for a day of developing his off piste and with the gear on we headed off. Provisionally the options were Solaise and over towards Fornet! Off we went and despite a slight queue to get up being day 1 things always start a little later!

A few noodles off the side of the piste before we upped the anti and did a few sorties off glacier etc. A mid morning hot choc was needed and then we skied over the lunch hour and things were of course much quieter! The snow as amazing - light and another 10cm of it from yesterday. We had a lot of fun.

After lunch at Datcha we did some options including Bus Stop and a Tete Arollay and both had even better snow (more protected) than before. The only issue was the Mattis piste (as I thought it might) was a massive mogul field - which was a bit of a leg killer for him!

After all that his legs were shot so we headed down and finished up!

This evening has been a bit crazy... I was at home (alone for much of it) as the kids headed to the cousins hotel for a swim and the MIL obviously was with them.... meanwhile Clare took her skis off and headed straight into town to catch up with them! I, on the other hand, had an online TDC Ski School meeting... a few things talked about... e.g. our current approach to dealing with the off piste dangers, our public facing approach to scare-mongering about 'not going off piste' etc as well as officially responding to some journalists asking 'whether it was one of us involved in the slide the other day!'. There was also chat about what we should expect weather wise this week and how we might juggle closures etc.... argh going to be spicy!

I was also speaking to the other instructors (non of which are from TDC actually) about how we might approach the chaos weather wise tomorrow and this week.... there is about 1m of snow forecast over the next 24 hours and as the day started sunny it gradually clouded over and by the end of the ski day it was pretty flat and the snow started about 1900. The issue with these things is never the snow itself but the wind that comes (often) with it!

Of course there was chat with the clients too and we needed to work out the lunch stops and in particular tomorrow whether we could get there - as it turned out its at a place in town so that will be easy enough!

Anyway all sorted now.

Lets see what happens tomorrow eh.

One things for sure the numbers of persons on the mountain today hopefully got a decent fix of fun for their week under perhaps the only blue skies we might see for the rest of the week!

TTFN

Glimpses of blue skies dawned a lot more

Slightly milky skies but generally lovely weather

You know it makes sense.

@Steve Angus, just wondered, accepting you were off piste much of the day, how busy did things seem around the area to you?
Given it was the first day of half term, lift queues, crowdedness on piste, mountain restaurants etc? Crazy skiing and riding??

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Hi guys - very occasional poster but active reader in the pre ski season, thanks for all the updates Steve I love reading you, that’s my warm up!

Arrived with the uk crowd on Saturday, I found it was not that bad yesterday! Bit of queues on some lifts at some point but nothing crazy, some busy slopes but also some quiet ones (even had several empty ones in the 1-3pm window). With the sun out was pretty decent!

Today… we shall see indeed

A snowHead

PeakyB - "how busy" - yea you could tell it was half term thats for sure; "lift queues" - where I personally think you notice it most - usual suspects like Glacier chair - busy; "mountain restaurants" - again you need to get your timings right if you want to avoid a lot of standing around! As far as "Crazy skiing and riding" - no didnt really notice it as was off piste most of the time im afraid!
Nicls - thanks - thats good to know! Yes you got to make the most of that 12/12:30 until 14:30 sort of time period IMO! Today.... hmmm well more on that in a moment

Blooming typical timings

I was awake early as I knew it was going to be a little chaotic trying to decide what the weather could or could not allow us to do and when / where etc! The first thing I noticed was that there was not as much fresh snow to have fallen as I thought and neither was the wind as strong as the possible forecasts showed it could have been! Now this is where a) local knowledge (sorry I use that often dont I!) b) a elevated point of view and c) knowing what to look for all helps / is crucial!

So I noticed that delivery lorries were coming into town - good sign that the road was not too bad and thus not too much snow had fallen. I could see them putting the cabins on the line for the La Daille gondola (wind was obviously not too bad and secondly they were optimistic about getting it open). I also noticed the visibility down here in town was OK too. So it was looking like game on.

Clare and I got sorted and ready for work. The kids were off to club and the MIL was in charge of them! Perfect - game on.

So there are 4 instructors working at this booking and we all met in the Gourmandine to get on the same wavelength and get set. We knew lunch was booked for 1215 at the Blizzard so that was the only concrete plan for the day. With the fact the kids (and a couple of adults) having not skied since last Winter and with the weather we decided to do a warm up on the Village! So off we went and we got ahead of the hordes which was good news.

The weather forecast was for the weather to get worse and in particular the wind to get up! So when the Olympic and all the main lifts opened on time (told you there had not been a huge amount of snow! Will be different tomorrow!) and things like Marmottes was signalled to be open we dropped straight onto the Olympic and up we went. I warned the kids that it could be nasty up there and they had never experienced such weather before so it would be a good experience for them.... Off we went.

We had to do some clothing adjustments and things but when we got out the Olympic top it was looking OK up there it really was. Yes there was some wind but ive seen and experienced much much worse before! So we dropped down Verte and into the wind but the snow was lovely - not too deep for the conditions i.e. perfectly grippy etc! Great! By the time we got down to Marmottes lift the wind was negligible so we decided to head back up again! We went up and by the time we got back up again the wind had really increased so the second trip down was not nearly as nice... doh! The wind into the face was pretty awful and the kids were getting a little cold so we battled our way down and decided to take a hot choc stop at the Folie!

Now the folie really need to sort their stuff in there as trying to do table service when its chaotic and people coming and going and not serving in the correct order is difficult! Also they didnt have enough staff to serve and the staff that were there didnt seem fussed about the sudden rush! Carnage - not impressed. Most people ended up just queueing to be served at the counter! By the time I had been served the kids were very bored and the queue behind me to be served was VERY VERY long!

Anyway it all took longer than planned and by the time we had finished I knew we needed to ski down to La Daille as the queue to get on the bus back into town would be pretty long! The actual ski down to La Daille was gorgeous - the snow was great (albeit a little choppy) but it was busy (as expected) but the wind was on our backs so all good. So a pleasant ski down was had.

The queue for the bus was predictably long but we got into town and to lunch eventually!

Lunch was excellent at the Blizzard it really was - the Veal Milanese was superb... yummy! Anyway over lunch it was apparent that not only were things closing on the mountain little by little but the roads and general warnings were increasing. At the same time the kids (and adults) were increasingly talking about swimming and non mountain activities for the afternoon so by the time we had finished lunch the decision had been made to call it a day and so everyone headed off home. It probably was sensible as 2 of the instructors live down the valley and needed to get out of town before things on the road got even more complicated!

So suddenly I was heading home.... It meant I was able to catch the very end of the Mens slalom but otherwise it was quiet at home. After morning with club the kids had lunch with their cousins (and the MIL) before they all went for a sledging session. Meanwhile Clare was finishing up her day too after lunch so when she got back the house was very quiet letting me get some bits done but also see some of the Olympics!

Meanwhile the weather out there has gotten worse and worse and the winds have gotten right up! The road to Fornet is cut off totally for movements, Tignes Le Lac and Val Claret is totally cut off too overnight and they are telling people (as is standard in these circumstances) to not play around buildings (fear of snow fall off the roof).

So we batten down hatches and get ready for tomorrow. At least they did a second PIDA this evening but there will be a lot more to do in the morning before things open so it could be an interesting one tomorrow!

One thing is for sure the snow is great out there and the temps are a little lower so the quality is awesome!

Finally for this evening I have just found out that one of the people that died last week was a client of mine! In fact he was in my group for a week off piste at the end of last season and had been in contact with me about guiding for him and some friends last week only a few weeks back but I couldnt take the booking as was already booked up! Lovely guy he was. I was probably going to be guiding him again this year anyway in the last week or two of the season! poo-poo that really brings it home! Lovely guy! RIP!

Anyway TTFN

If anyone knows about the PisteX code (a campaign to improve safety awareness on the mountain) - then you wont quite believe this message they received!

I just love these old photos of Val - this one popped up somewhere on the internet earlier - love it!

A snowHead

@Steve Angus, that's a fabulous, but very sobering read.

I fear that Ziann Ziann may not be well.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@Steve Angus, that must have been very upsetting news for you. I'm so sorry. Sad

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any thoughts on what year that pic was taken of Val ?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

It would be 1935-ish I'd guess, give or take a few years

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@Steve Angus,

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Frosty the Snowman - yea id like to think so! Nutter!
KSH - thank you - yea quite a shock really
Charlie333 - no idea but sounds like NoMapNoCompass might be about right
PeakyB - thank you and yes give it a while - im sure there will be plenty of snow for you still! Another storm coming in Thursday!

After all it is free

Snowy & windy

It was a little bit like groundhog day this morning but the weather was worse than yesterday. It had obviously snowed all night and the wind had been howling! It was obviously going to be a tricky one trying to get the best of the snow but avoiding the wind and closures and trying to think about where the hordes would go and crucially when!

The road into Tignes had been closed for a while because of PIDA work and the roads to Fornet and other area of town were under restrictions too! Anyway we decided to meet as usual and knew it was going to be less options than yesterday!

Ben was off skiing this morning, Olivia had her training cancelled and Clare could not get to her chalet meet as the Carrats area was closed to pedestrians. So I was the only one out the door for 0900 start. Everyone was dead on time and we started with a lap on the Village BUT being day 2 for many people they are a lot more on it time wise so by about 0901 it was starting to get busy! By the time we were coming down we were keeping an eye on our 'networks' e.g. WhatsApp groups, best guess as to where people would head to etc. Also there is the consideration of where the kids (and parents) might wish to ski (or not as the case may be!) and what might open and when! Through one of our French colleagues they got the heads up that Olympic would be closed all day and nothing in Fornet etc would open... with the wind as it was it would mean that stuff up high would also be closed!

Me and one of the other instructors took a tactical and bussed it to La Daille.... we were due to have lunch down La Daille anyway! The worst that would happen is that we would have the drag lift in La Daille and the best is we would arrive and the gondola would open in front of us... so we got to the bus station and there was still no sign on the app indicating an eta for La Daille gondola opening up! So we did a Lanches drag a couple of times before other instructors got the same idea... it was a good chance to work on some slow speed drills.... but then the La Daille gondola opened up so we dropped straight on - faced the wind at the top before quickly turning our backs on it and enjoying amazing snow down to La Daille. In fact we were so early we had the Diebold to ourselves. At least the vis was OK. We did it quickly as we knew the queues would start building at La Daille.

Anyway we managed a couple of laps before going to a DESERTED Folie for hot choc stop and after that we headed back down to La Daille. However by the time we got there we attempted to get into the queue to come back up for one more lap but unfortunately the queue was just too long! So we called it a morning and went into the Equinox for lunch! It was rammed in there but we enjoyed a wonderful lunch - I had an amazing Club (Chicken) sandwich.

As the weather outside improved ever so slightly (well its still a little up and down but its certainly better than it has been the last 24 hours or so) I thought someone would want to come out skiing but alas nobody did.... quite amazed by that tbh! So it was called a day! They got in their van back to their chalet and im sure they will all be enjoying a swim and spa / massage by now!

At home I watched with delight the news that Australia had been knocked out the cricket - amazing news! I spent half the afternoon de-neiging the balcony and roof... there was a lot of snow to get rid of thats for sure!

So im enjoying a cuppa and Clare should be home soon.

Olivia was doing indoor sport training this afternoon and Ben got to ski with his buddies and Club. Clare has just finished her days session (she got going about lunchtime in the end!) and im watching as things start to improve out there weather wise.

Tomorrow should be a decent day weather wise and then once again a storm starts to roll in late tomorrow night into Thursday eeek

In other news they are continuing to have to manage the avalanche risk etc out there and it will take a while to sort it all out in the morning! In Valloire in the Maurienne a slide has come down into part of the village and near La Grave there has been another incident too..... all been a bit of a crazy day really. At least the roads around resort and into / out of Tignes are returning to some sort of normality now too! Eeek.

TTFN

I totally forgot to snap a photo on the mountain today but this photo I snapped on the bus - just to show the mounds of snow everywhere against a threatening sky we have had for the last few days.

Wonderful summary as usual Steve. I especially liked your comment about Australia going out of the T20. My sentiments exactly.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

After such a great day lapping the La Daille area with constant refills and no real queues yesterday, today was pretty frustrating. Why do they say on the Val app that the only slopes that were open were at the font de neige / solaise, yet the app was saying that La Daille bubble was open .. did we take the risk amd go to there ? Webcam was 30 mins out of date and no people skiing down … went to solaise Gondi and it looked at least 45 mins wait .. so bolted to La Daille and it was open ….. Eh oh!

why do the not have the man messages aligned with what’s actually opening !?

Then my youngest had a total meltdown at her boots and went back to snowberry and it was shut .. only did 3 runs … sorted the boots .. girls turned away from Cocorico even though they are both over 18 Eh oh!

… wanted actual passport ….

Reset and hope tomorrow better

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Another observation is just that over the years I’ve noticed that Val hasn’t accounted for the increased beds in resort and subsequent lift queue management. And actually, they need to modernise many of the lifts to solve some of the bottle necks. Why oh why they can’t use a more logical US style queuing system is beyond me. The La Daille queue with two sides and holding people either side and having no filter that’s logical is just so bad. It’s Europe as a whole, to be fair, but it’s so stupid to not have airport style back and forth queues. All it takes is some piles and ropes before the gates and after more than one

snow reports

Another observation is just that over the years I’ve noticed that Val hasn’t accounted for the increased beds in resort and subsequent lift queue management. And actually, they need to modernise many of the lifts to solve some of the bottle necks. Why oh why they can’t use a more logical US style queuing system is beyond me. The La Daille queue with two sides and holding people either side and having no filter that’s logical is just so bad. It’s Europe as a whole, to be fair, but it’s so stupid to not have airport style back and forth queues. All it takes is some piles and ropes before the gates and after more than one.

Rant over ..

@Alex A, I’ve seen a few posts on Instagram recently from places in town stating if you’ve No ID there is No entry/drinks/beer.
As it’s european school holidays they are just being careful, your girls shouldn’t have a problem if they have a driving licence or uni id card with them.

You know it makes sense.

Rob54 - Thanks so much. Yes totally - but now the hard work starts for England eh!
Alex A - Yea I hear your frustrations - I agree its disjointed! Ive always said that European resorts - Val in particular in this case need to take a look how things are organised in other parts of the world! Im not saying its not perfect elsewhere etc but I think a wake up call would be welcome! Hmm yes thats a nightmare re ski boots and not getting into Cocorico's doh! Yes the lifts are not that well sorted are they either! The issue (and this is where Europe loses out again) is that beds in resort v lift systems are not co-ordinated! Europe / Val / France or however you want to deliminate things - they dont 'care' about managing lift lines as its 'not their job' and it would cost more money / time etc! Its a mindset thing stemming from treating the customer as a number rather than a valued item unfortunately.
muppet - good advice - thanks

Thats better

It was nice to look out the window and see the wind had calmed down BUT there was still snow falling lightly. It was much better than it has been!

The kids were skiing with their cousins again this morning (with so much of Club cancelled this week for Olivia and her race training she has enjoyed skiing with them and Ben - well he is only doing afternoons officially this week) and Clare and I had to get to our respective start points for 0900... thank goodness for the MIL taking the slack for us!

So we started on time and I think there was obviously a lot of people expecting a delayed opening as first thing it was deserted up there. It was a choice (as it always is) between Solaise and Bellevarde and I thought there could be issue of going up Bellevarde of only being able to ski to La Daille OR lapping Marmottes so it made sense to go up Solaise - more options up there for what we wanted! As it turned out we got a few laps on Madeleine in before anyone else arrived and then Datcha too..... but of course the crowds starting to arrive and we just hung out for perhaps 10 mins waiting for Glacier chair to open. The liftie can never really confirmed exactly when they will be good to open but they had been test running the line for a while we had been noticing whilst skiing by before or taking the Madeleine lift so it was only a matter of time.

With the lift opening we enjoyed a perfect lap on perfect powder top to bottom which delighted the kids! But it was then time for a quick hot choc stop at the Datcha! We then had to make a decision as we needed to be back down in town for lunch at 1230 so we decided that Datcha (yes a big queue there) followed by the magic carpet and then giving the kids a choice between ski down or gondola down would be the best and if we had extra time the Rogoney probably would NOT have much of a queue today... so I skied the kids down and my colleague downloaded with one of the kids! A quick lap on Rogoney followed before lunch!

It was one of the parents birthday today so we had probably an extended lunch stop before getting back on the slopes. This afternoon everyone wanted to ski together which meant we had some herding to do as instructors between us but I thought we coped quite nicely.

After getting them back on the minivan back to their chalet I headed up the mountain and recorded my weekly snow report. This evening it has been the usual!

The snow was nice today and it was nice to see it but the weather is supposed to really move back in once again overnight and a lot more snow is coming our way - hopefully with not too much wind!!!! I would say the lift queues will be less when its snowing that hard but it wont be true - they will still be big as there is still limited openings out there!

One other thing I did manage to do today was to break my ski pole in half.... was whacking the snow off the bottom of my ski boot after lunch and the pole snapped in two as I hit it - whoops!

Im tired this evening. So TTFN

Busy skiing down Solaise before lunch!

Looks like a slide came across the piste (Face) when they have done PIDA in the last few days - trees upended!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Will it stop sometime soon?

Once again this morning the curtains were opened and it was snowing! There had not been a massive amount overnight but enough that the snowploughs were going. There did not appear to be too much wind though!

Olivia was skiing with club and Ben was going to have a day with his granny so just Clare and I needed to be out the door on time! It just seems as if it wont stop snowing at the moment. So I headed up into town.... its worth noting that at this time of the year the bus network about town really gets a lot of pressure on it but it seemed as if they sent up two buses at peak times this morning to get people up into town.... im sure it was a fluke but it was very welcomed thats for sure!

We all met in town as usual and the snow was now coming in much harder but with the snow only starting in the early hours and with a general lack of wind it was game on as most lifts were going to open! We decided to head Bellevarde way and off we went. At altitude there was wind but it was OK. Even better news there was a nice cushion of fresh snow - perhaps 10cm of it so far! Big fat flakes were falling from the sky too!

So we decided to head down towards La Daille and take advantage of lovely snow and not many people heading down that way. Perfect! We had a couple of nice laps on great snow and nobody around! We needed a change of scenery and so headed up Tommeuse. Today was the first time this week (I think) that the link to Tignes has opened which is saying something in Feb half term eh!

As we went up Tommeuse we remembered why we had stayed lower (vis). It was thick cloud, snowing hard and wind into the face. In fact it was quite cold so the kids decided that they really wanted a hot choc so we stopped at the Toviere which is somewhere I dont stop that often. Perfect time to warm up as the wind was getting quite strong. In fact when we came out and given half of the resorts were making the move from Tignes to Val and vice-a-versa it was jolly busy on the ski from the Toviere. With the fresh snow, wind and lack of vis it was somewhat interesting trying to make our way towards the Marmottes lift. The pistes were of course mega busy and carnage everywhere. We had decided that if the queue for Marmottes was OK then we would head up and download to do some Rogoney laps rather than skiing to La Daille and bussing it back into town and sure enough most people were thinking of skiing to La Daille (half the world was down there I would imagine with the weather moving in!) which meant Marmottes was quiet.

With one kid feeling really cold my colleague (we were team teaching!) took one down early whilst my team circled around for another on Verte. Perfect! But we needed to get back towards town for lunch so we downloaded on Olympic!

Lunch was at the Yule and it was very nice as it usually is in there! As we sat down the flakes were getting bigger and more intense and the news from up the mountain was that the link was going to have to close as the wind was quite strong now... I wonder how many people got stuck on the 'wrong' side of the mountain today eh!

So we enjoyed a nice lunch - we really did. Although there was one interesting moment (im really not sure what happened) when a member of the public on table 'a' ended up having a stand up argument with an instructor from a certain ski school in red! Both ladies were speaking in English even though neither had it as their first language thats for sure. I could not really hear what it was about but it was like a moment from a movie with everyone trying not to listen in / see what was going on but unfortunately being dragged into it! Doh not a good look!

With the weather getting worse the kids decided that they had had enough for the day so that was that. It has been a very disrupted week for them all it really had been - not an easy week at all for teaching either! Tricky stuff! But I think half the problem today was that the kids were under-dressed and therefore cold. To be honest the snow was not the lightest either so a slightly moist atmosphere doesn't help matters! Im not saying it was wet snow but it could have been lighter!

So with the kids off home I was in town ready to take the opportunity to go get some end of week presents for the kids - well mainly for one of the kids whose birthday it is tomorrow. So I found myself shopping and picking up a gift on behalf of the instructors for her.

Back at home I did some jobs whilst Olivia was doing sport this afternoon and Ben was playing with a friend in the snow - making dens and digging etc. Got loads done and of course watched some of the Olympics - what a result (well in part really) for Emily Harrop. A relative local girl from St Foy with x2 British parents - pity she could not compete for GB eh!

The weather this afternoon has gotten worse and the wind is pretty high this evening but the amount of snow that has fallen has once again been quite a lot - I reckon about another 30cm + today. Tomorrow the weather should be quite windy and snowy to start but brightening up as the day progresses - I think there will be delayed opening with the PIDA work in the morning.

It will be nice to actually get a full days skiing in with them tomorrow which we should get!

TTFN

Snowy eh!

NOTHING at all to do with Val and skiing but this made me chuckle!

A snowHead

Oh and I forget to repost this I saw earlier.... I like this (for those British ski racing fans!)

"British elite ski racing performance on the FIS Alpine World Cup tour since its inauguration in January 1967.

GB Alpine
11 x Alpine World Cup podium results

Dave Ryding holds seven Alpine World Cup medals, by far the most for any Brit, with one gold, four silver and two bronze. Divina holds two bronze medals. Konrad and Gina each hold one silver medal.

-----

GB Alpine
97 x Alpine World Cup results in the top ten

GBR Women, 46 top tens:
Gina Hathorn x 22
Divina Galica x 16
Chemmy Crawford-Alcott x 5
Felicity 'Bunny' Field x 2
Bridget Newall x 1

GBR Men, 51 top tens:
Dave Ryding x 33
Martin Bell x 7
Alain Baxter x 4
Laurie Taylor x 2
Jeremy Palmer-Tomlinson x 1
Konrad Bartelski x 1
Graham Bell x 1
Finlay Mickel x 1
Billy Major x 1

——

Best GB Alpine male and female World Cup results across all disciplines:

Downhill
2nd Konrad, 3rd Divina

Slalom
1st Dave (Kitzbuehel 2022), 2nd Gina

Giant Slalom
5th Gina and Divina, 9th Jeremy

SuperG
11th Chemmy and Martin

Combined/SuperCombi
7th Chemmy, 9th Martin

Parallel Slalom/City Event
2nd Dave

Best GBR result in the blue riband Kitzbuehel men's downhill, 12th Graham Bell

Divina and Chemmy have top 10 results in three disciplines

Special mention to Lesley Beck, Nigel Smith, Ronald Duncan, Charlie Guest, Emma Carrick-Anderson, Charlie Raposo, John Moulder-Brown and Alex Tilley for their top 20s. (Alex Tilley with top 20 results in two disciplines.)

Hats off to Dave Ryding, the greatest British racer of all time, and to all of our star athletes for their world class careers in the sport"

A snowHead

Dave Ryding really was (still is!) a special talent, what a career. Sometimes you need it written down to appreciate his amazing palmares - and all that from someone who always comes across as humble, unassuming and a general nice guy.

We salute you Dave, absolute champion!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Still say Alain Baxter is the rightful holder of an Olympic Bronze

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Hope Dave’s talents are put to good use to inspire even more enjoyment and success in skiing!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

NoMapNoCompass - totally - will be missed! Hope his last WC run he'll get a really good salute
kb36 - yea totally!
PeakyB - with some luck yes!

Thats more like it

So I ended up sleeping on the sofa last night as Ben had a nightmare and wanted someone close by when I finally got him back into bed. So needless to say I have not had the best nights sleep therefore will be in bed early tonight!

Looking out the curtains this morning - well the snow had largely stopped, ditto the wind but the vis was still looking less than average! Olivia and Ben were set to ski once again with their cousins, Clare was on the chalet meet again so I headed into town!

Everyone was raring to go so we were off. Since they had lunch booked at the Folie for one of the kids birthdays we needed to go Bellevarde way and luckily we were ahead of the crowds. I thought there could have been a bit more of a delay getting things open like the Olympic but alas not. The conditions at the top were OK so it was game on.

Between the other instructor and I we hatched a plan to head to Tignes - first time in a long time have been able to get over to Tignes! We had a great ski over there although the pistes were busy - everyone so keen to make the most of things now the weather was improving.

A welcome stop at Aspen for the kids and then we were greeted with perhaps the biggest queue I have ever seen for a lift and that was saying stuff in the ski school line - blimey! We did finally get out of Tignes and headed back towards dropping the kids before as instructors we headed to Equinox in La Daille for lunch as there was not enough space for us to join then for it at the Folie. It was nice having just an instructors only lunch actually!

With the weather improving more and more and also it being some of the groups last day we were off for a final afternoon of fun. Of course with all the soft snow about and people the slopes were getting more and more bumped and churned up! So we had to work hard to find some quieter and nice slopes after lunch so we went about that. With the kids feeling tired I ended up having a couple of adults this afternoon instead but that was nice for a change of scenery!

One thing we needed to do was team up with one of the other instructors to help get some videoing done of one of their students who was going for her GCSE PE so we needed to get some filming done of her 'racing' on the stade. Unfortunately there was no gates set up so we needed to improvise with a stopwatch and some filming! Anyway we got there I think with what she needed! Quite hilarious filming a stop watch and the student skiing in the back ground all at the same time.

Meanwhile after skiing with their cousins this morning Ben was skiing with Club and did his first Chamois race and he did really well getting Bronze - go Ben go - really good for your first Chamois that is. Meanwhile Olivia had some general fitness training.

One thing that was happening an awful lot out there this morning was lots of avalanche clearance work in the form of PIDA. A lot of movement was recorded thats for sure and perhaps the more impressive slide of the lot was the mountains past the Fornet releasing! Boy a lot of snow came down thats for sure! Check out my instagram for a video of it.

I think finally we might see the resort return to some sort of normality tomorrow as the forecast for the next week is for a lot of sun - yay!

So I headed home and changed before immediately turning around and heading into town. The kids had gone for some sledging with their cousins and as adults we met up for a quick drink and got the kids some pancakes at their hotel. But the cousins are heading home tomorrow so have an early start so we did not stay for too long! It was nice seeing them all briefly though

We picked up takeaway pizzas on the way home and now have gotten the kids into bed but im really tired so will be following real soon.

TTFN

P.S. Apparently this morning alone we have had just under 3m of snow to have fallen - blimey!

Varied weather today!

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Wow…with that huge amount of snow and mostly clear sunny weather forecast, next week should be epic. Guess you’ll need all your tacticals to navigate the crowds though. I think Paris winter holidays start next week?

Well done to Ben for his bronze - hopefully he’ll dream about that run rather than have nightmares.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

P.S. Apparently this morning alone we have had just under 3m of snow to have fallen - blimey!

Steve, do you mean 3m overnight Thursday to Friday or 3m in the last storm system? 3m overnight would be extraordinary. It’s still an enormous amount whatever.

After all it is free

@RickBoden, no that must be a mistake and/or lost in translation. 50cm in a day generally shuts down the village. Looking out of the window, I don't see how we've had 1m in a day, never mind 3.

FYI, general local chat is saying 2m in 6 days.

PeakyB - Yes it will be lots of tactics next week and the sun shining will be welcome! Thank you re Ben - he was a very happy little boy!
RickBoden - yea I meant so far in the month of February is what I meant! Yes about 2m in the last week as Dr John says

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Best Face ever

I had a strange start to the day... I must have been woken to Clare popping to the loo about 0539 and I opened one eye to see 'x:40' and thought it was time to get up (alarm was set for 0640). Well I had the bedside light on and had the dressing gown on when I took a second look at my watch to notice it was 0540 and not 0640... doh. So by the time Clare got back from the loo I was back in bed with the light off... I did drift off I think for another 10 mins kip but 'whoops!'. Old age has started early!

So when the day started we were off. The weather was finally looking decent (still cloud but wind was much better). The road meanwhile looked busy already to get out of town. The family that had been with the family ive been teaching this week ended up leaving at 0700 and reported that they made it to Geneva for 1300 so were very grateful I had suggested leaving as early as they did.

We met as normal (Olivia finally got a day of SL training in (she reported the ruts were up to her armpits this afternoon)) and Ben was skiing all day too. Clare was on the last day of her booking too like me.

I got to the meet point and we were off dead on time. As expected the crowds were gone and it was looking awesome! Given the stars aligning and all that we headed up the Olympic and some of the kids lead by me dived down first thing for an EPIC Face... it was the BEST I have ever seen it - soft but perfectly pisted and nobody on it - could not have been better - we had a really lovely descent!

For the remainder of the morning we popped around Solaise and had a wonderful ski about! Hot choc was at Datcha and lunch was at the Refuge!

A couple of things to note up there:

1) When they did PIDA yesterday by heli up Solaise they blasted the Leissieres ridge (pretty normal that) BUT crucially it slipped bit all the way across and under the actual lift line (see photo below) - first time ive seen that!
2) There was definately cases of 'tracks lulling people into poor positioning' across the sector today... e.g. (see photo below) people skiing lines just off the side off the Madeleine piste and terrain traps etc down there. Anyway seeing the lines and thinking skiing 'just' next to them would be sensible would definately not be!

Also whilst we were up there we tried out the new ski run up off the Glacier chair... ski down the normal route and bear left and left again opposite the entrance to the Leissieres lift and you end up on a new skier cross route - it winds it way back down to the Datcha restaurant - pretty cool actually

Lunch was awesome as we went to the Refuge. As we got to our table 'T' announced that he had it on good authority that the Roast chicken (min 2 persons) was the BEST in the world.... so we all HAD to have that and it was simply superb... comes with a couple of sides but a load of chicken slow roast cooked.... stunning! Have it if you go there - well worth it for an (expensive) treat!

Much to my surprise and given the lovely weather nobody wanted to ski after lunch so it was a simple ski down the Solaise and they called it a day! I thought it would be a full ski day but alas not.

So there I was packing them into their van back to their chalet and wondering what I will do with the rest of the afternoon and a lady who turned out to be from Belgium asked me for some help! She was standing there with a VERY tired looking 5 year old girl! She was asking where the bus back to Tignes went from... so I explained! But I did say that it might be quicker and easier to get back to Tignes via lift and since there is virtually no skiing involved (Up Olympic, down Funi, up La Daille gondola, Up Tommeuse and download Toviere) it might be quicker to do that ! She was up for that BUT then she announced she needed to get to Brev as she needed to leave Tignes asap! EEEEK I said that bus from the gare routerie might be easiest after all but BOY you do not want to be stuck at the wrong end of the resort with a tired 5 year old having to get all the way back to Brev to get on the road and back to Belgium - eeek! Hope she got back OK and the little girl did not get too many melt downs!

So this afternoon I have been with the MIL and watching the Olympics (good on Emily Harrop) and Ben after skiing has gone to a friends house, Olivia is back from training and Clare finished her booking. Of course the Rugby was on the iPad too so it has been a sport fest pm!

We are gearing up for up for an evening of Olympics action - come on the curlers and tomorrow I have the day off - more sports (cricket) to watch and more Olympics action! Clare has another day booking tomorrow with another client. The kids are not skiing so we will be having a lazy morning, some homework, maybe lunch out and a movie afternoon. Back to school on Monday!

TTFN

Skier creep action looming!

New run near Glacier chair

Blasting on the ridge below Lessieries ridge doesnt usually lead to slides where the chair is!

More amazing snow depths!

Sometimes irrational things are asked of me!!! Its a month away and it turned out he is a beginner!

TTFN

Help!!

The view from............ Val d'Isere and the Espace Killy

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