More weather woes

Following my recent skiing trip to La Clusaz, I was back to France on business
on Tuesday. To be precise, I was visiting Grenoble, situated in the French Alps. Normally when I visit at this time of year, I feel extremely jealous of my colleagues who live there as they can go skiing frequently. However, as has been the case for all of this "winter", I didn't feel that way. The weather was warm(ish) and it rained a lot. The story I heard was that the rain/snow divide was at 2000m. Not good if you want to ski. Finally, I looked at the La Clusaz webcams this morning; all I can says is that I'm pleased I wasn't there for two weeks.

Happy Times

In case I've given the impression that we didn't have a good time in La Clusaz, I thought I'd post this photo of my two sons with the Monte Blanc range behind them.

Wonderful view over to Monte Blanc, wonderful snow underfoot, wonderful skiing at this altitude.

Coach Class To La Clusaz

Our trip to La Clusaz was organised through Ski The Edge who specialise in skiing holidays based in French Youth Hostels. The half-term deal they offer is amazingly good value; travel, accommodation, full board and lift pass all included.

A whole party of us from around where we live in Bristol travelled out together by coach - only one person found a reason why she had to fly back. The journeys were long (about sixteen hours) but tolerable.

The accommodation was fine; our family had a four bed (bunk) room with its own shower. There wasn't a lot of room but I've had chalet holidays with less space.

The catering was great. Good, unpretentious French food for lunch (yes lunch was included) and diner. And we got breakfast and tea. Oh, you could swap your cooked lunch for a packed lunch if you so wanted.

Finally, the staff were great, very friendly and helpful.

Would we do this type of trip again? That's a tough question. It can't be beaten as a cheap skiing trip but it did have two downsides. The first was the snow; but that was bad luck (or global heating). The second was the journey - it would have been greatly preferable to have flown from Bristol to Geneva and taken a road transfer to La Clusaz. However, that would probably added 40-50% to the total price given we were travelling at half term. So, can't be beaten for value but I think I'd like to apply a larger budget to my skiing in future.

Global Warming and Skiing

The break in postings on this blog is due to my having been on a skiing trip to La Clusaz in France.

This year has been very poor for snow in this part of France. In mid-February there should be lots and lots of snow in La Clusaz. This year there wasn't. The southern facing slopes were pretty much bare below about 1600-1700m. Above that things were better, but the snow conditions left a lot to be desired until you got up to around 2000-2100m, and in La Clusaz there isn't a lot of skiing at that height - La Balme and L'Aiguille were the only places with really good snow.

We had rain/sleet/snow on the morning of our final day in La Clusaz. There were a few centimetres of powder to play in. Unfortunately the wind was quite strong and the chair (as seen in these photos) leading up to L'Aigille wasn't open so I was stuck with rather heavy powder. Then it started raining....