Snow sculpture ice carving in Val d'Isere

Tignes Snow Report: 17th December 2011

Conditions Improving in Espace Killy. But more snow due on Tuesday!

featured in Snow report Author Debbie Priestley, Tignes Reporter Updated 24 October 2014

Espace Killy is slowly starting to look like the pristine, beautiful ski resorts it’s is famous for once again. The roads are slowly starting to clear into town, but Le Fornet is Val d’Isere is still inaccessible (at five o’clock this after noon) by any means. The towns are still on amber avalanche warning, and it has been made clear that pisteurs and other resort staff will be working to clear the roads before they even start on the pistes. Safety is Freedom (Henry’s Avalanche Talks) and not being able to walk outside the town centres due to the avalanche danger is definitely not very free.

The snow has almost stopped falling, and the wind has dropped considerably, after yesterday’s top wind speed, in town, of just over a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour! That said, we are still hearing a lot of avalanche rumbles.

Today, in Val d’Isere, there were 5 pistes open, around La Daille, and in Tignes, 6 pistes. That was apparently six percent of the Espace Killy resorts. This should rapidly improve though, as we have pretty amazing pisteurs here! There is two metres ten centimetres of snow at the top of the mountains now, even after all the wind, and one metre fifty at base (resort) level. We haven’t had this much snow in a long time as you can tell by the state of the villages this morning, I have never seen so many JCB’s.

The weather forecast is for conditions to gradually clear throughout tomorrow, with only light snow showers on Monday, so fingers crossed for some good skiing. We’re then supposed to get hit by another, much lighter, snow storm. With sunshine possibly again on Thursday, depending on which forecast you look at, but this may change. Wind speed is due to pick up again Tuesday and Wednesday but nothing like we’ve been having, still, thermals are a must, and if you’re skiing with a bag, it’s an idea to take an extra layer if you can when the forecast is cold.

Driving conditions are gradually improving too, the road to Bourg is now open but you still need snow chains, or a four wheel drive with snow tyres to get here as it’s pretty slippy, and breaking isn’t easy!

Anyhow, at least we can ski in the ski resort now, even if it is fairly limited. Tomorrow should offer limited, but great pistes if you’re out early enough to avoid the massed. It will probably get chopped up very quickly, and the avalanche risk is still high so maybe don’t go off piste unless you really know what you’re doing, and have all the correct equipment. My advice would be to get up early and enjoy pristine pistes, maybe ski till lunch, and hope they open more of the mountain tomorrow.

I would also like to re-iterate, after witnessing some severe idiocy today, that cars cannot stop quickly in these conditions, so don’t walk out in front of them, and especially don’t push your buggy out into the road in front of you without looking. There were a lot of close calls today, but I think everyone is ok bar bruises from slipping in the streets.

Get out on the mountain and enjoy the snow tomorrow morning, who knows what will be open; it could be an amazing day to ski!