Tignes Grande Motte, current conditions

Quick update - even if temperatures are still well above seasonal norms,
glacier skiing at Tignes escaped the soaking received by the Austrian
Alps earlier this week, and received a healthy dump of 25 cms or so of
snow during Monday night. Conditions when I went up on Friday were still
pretty good despite a couple of days of high daytime temperatures and
strong winds.

Not sure how long it will last though, there's no sign of another
depression coming across right now and temperatures remain high.
Thursday saw the start of the French half-term holidays and the influx
of countless French race clubs, so queues first thing can be pretty
horrendous. Thursday in particular was bad - the high winds not only
made for unpleasant skiing, but closed the cablecar all day (a more
regular occurence since the 'incident' of a couple of years back). Tha
wait for the cablecar took as much as 30 minutes according to those who
ventured up regardless. Apparently at times the gusts were so powerful
that those in the queues were lying flat on the ground to escape its
full force...

Great day on the glacier yesterday though. Didn't go up 'til mid-morning
to avoid the crush at the funicular early on, but despite the sunshine a
cold breeze kept the snow in perfect nick until the lifts closed shortly
before 3. As of Saturday, the lifts will be closing an hour later....

Pete
http://mysnowsports.com

"pg" wrote in message
...
| Quick update - even if temperatures are still well above seasonal
norms,
| glacier skiing at Tignes escaped the soaking received by the Austrian
| Alps earlier this week, and received a healthy dump of 25 cms or so of
| snow during Monday night. Conditions when I went up on Friday were
still
| pretty good despite a couple of days of high daytime temperatures and
| strong winds.
|
| Not sure how long it will last though, there's no sign of another
| depression coming across right now and temperatures remain high.
| Thursday saw the start of the French half-term holidays and the influx
| of countless French race clubs, so queues first thing can be pretty
| horrendous. Thursday in particular was bad - the high winds not only
| made for unpleasant skiing, but closed the cablecar all day (a more
| regular occurence since the 'incident' of a couple of years back). Tha
| wait for the cablecar took as much as 30 minutes according to those
who
| ventured up regardless.

DOH - that should read "the wait for the drags"...

If anyone goes skiing/boarding at the Mondial in Les Deux Alpes this
week http://www.mondialdusnow.com/ I would be interested to know what
you think of the conditions on the glacier.

pg wrote:
Quick update - even if temperatures are still well above seasonal norms,
glacier skiing at Tignes escaped the soaking received by the Austrian
Alps earlier this week, and received a healthy dump of 25 cms or so of
snow during Monday night. Conditions when I went up on Friday were still
pretty good despite a couple of days of high daytime temperatures and
strong winds.

Not sure how long it will last though, there's no sign of another
depression coming across right now and temperatures remain high.
Thursday saw the start of the French half-term holidays and the influx
of countless French race clubs, so queues first thing can be pretty
horrendous. Thursday in particular was bad - the high winds not only
made for unpleasant skiing, but closed the cablecar all day (a more
regular occurence since the 'incident' of a couple of years back). Tha
wait for the cablecar took as much as 30 minutes according to those who
ventured up regardless. Apparently at times the gusts were so powerful
that those in the queues were lying flat on the ground to escape its
full force...

Great day on the glacier yesterday though. Didn't go up 'til mid-morning
to avoid the crush at the funicular early on, but despite the sunshine a
cold breeze kept the snow in perfect nick until the lifts closed shortly
before 3. As of Saturday, the lifts will be closing an hour later....

Pete
http://mysnowsports.com

"French_Skier" wrote in message
ups.com...
| If anyone goes skiing/boarding at the Mondial in Les Deux Alpes this
| week http://www.mondialdusnow.com/ I would be interested to know what
| you think of the conditions on the glacier.

Saw some photos from the glacier yesterday, taken roughly at the same
time as I took mine (see this blog entry:
http://mysnowsports.com/Blogs/mode=display/id=280.html). Looks slightly
dodgy right at the bottom by the restaurant at 2 Alpes, but there's a
whole bunch of people from snowHeads going out there towards the end of
next week for the Mondial (including me) so there should be ample
reports on the conditions...

Pete

French_Skier wrote:
If anyone goes skiing/boarding at the Mondial in Les Deux Alpes this
week http://www.mondialdusnow.com/ I would be interested to know what
you think of the conditions on the glacier.

Not looking brilliant at the moment,
http://www.2alpes.com/winter/uk/site...ct/webcams.php
but there's a chance of some fresh snow during the course of the week as the
freezing level plummets.
I found enough to ski on last year, the very bottom most part in front of
the restaurant getting bad towards the end of the week, judging by photos
I've seen recently it's in a similar condition but they were still moving
snow around to cover the ice.

pg wrote:
"French_Skier" wrote in message
ups.com...
If anyone goes skiing/boarding at the Mondial in Les Deux Alpes this
week http://www.mondialdusnow.com/ I would be interested to know what
you think of the conditions on the glacier.

Saw some photos from the glacier yesterday, taken roughly at the same
time as I took mine (see this blog entry:
http://mysnowsports.com/Blogs/mode=display/id=280.html). Looks
slightly dodgy right at the bottom by the restaurant at 2 Alpes, but
there's a whole bunch of people from snowHeads going out there
towards the end of next week for the Mondial (including me) so there
should be ample reports on the conditions...

Pete

Hope to see you there Pete. I skied with Russell on Tuesday night at
Castleford, first time for him since busting his ACL so he was a little
nervous.

Cheers Pete, look forward to your impressions as I often find webcams
slightly deceptive. Glacier in L2A is often black in late summer for
instance but conditions in morning are usually decent despite this.

pg wrote:
"French_Skier" wrote in message
ups.com...
| If anyone goes skiing/boarding at the Mondial in Les Deux Alpes this
| week http://www.mondialdusnow.com/ I would be interested to know what
| you think of the conditions on the glacier.

Saw some photos from the glacier yesterday, taken roughly at the same
time as I took mine (see this blog entry:
http://mysnowsports.com/Blogs/mode=display/id=280.html). Looks slightly
dodgy right at the bottom by the restaurant at 2 Alpes, but there's a
whole bunch of people from snowHeads going out there towards the end of
next week for the Mondial (including me) so there should be ample
reports on the conditions...

Pete

Would you say there is much less snow than normal in the area for this time
of year. Obviously its stil early early but some resorts are looking to open
this month

I remember last year (as I went to ValD & Tignes it was quite late on before
there was a decent covering

Hey Guys n Gals,

We're off to Tignes on friday morning for a weekend of boarding. The
more i look at the weather and webcams and lift opening
statuses...es.... the more worried i get! Does anyone know if
there is enough snow to play in? Is the snowpark open? Are any bars
open? Is it worth the travel? aarrrrgggh!! If not is there anywhere
else to go? please help. Never been to Tignes before so i know nothing.

Many thanks
your desperatley seaking snow friend
Dan

wrote in message
oups.com...
| Hey Guys n Gals,
|
| We're off to Tignes on friday morning for a weekend of boarding. The
| more i look at the weather and webcams and lift opening
| statuses...es.... the more worried i get! Does anyone know if
| there is enough snow to play in? Is the snowpark open? Are any bars
| open? Is it worth the travel? aarrrrgggh!! If not is there anywhere
| else to go? please help. Never been to Tignes before so i know
nothing.
|
| Many thanks
| your desperatley seaking snow friend
| Dan

Just to add a little to the reply in the "Snow Report" thread,
conditions today were ... icy. All of the light snowfall of the weekend
was blown off by hurricane force winds and redeposited on Mt
Kilimanjaro, but there is a little good news - even though the main
glacier snowpark has yet to appear, there's the new one up at the top of
the Grande Motte (3500 sector), I'd forgotten about that one. Very
small, but better than nothing.

Pete
http://mysnowsports.com