Friday

After snow last night it cleared and there was sun all day. Here's le Mont Pourri from the bus stop this morning.





I was seduced by the powder so went down the black from Roches Noirs, and then down Marmottes, which was unpisted from below the Plan du Repos lift. Back up Petit Bois and down the black, off-piste to the right (below l'Ancolie). Back up and a coffee in aux Trois Ours, up around and over to Italy, where the snow was much less interesting. (No powder visible, and wind-blown crust off-piste). Lunch on Maison Carrel (the excellent tagliatelle ai funghi porcini), a bunch of the blacks into town, coffee and ice-cream!




















Some of the runs in the pass, and a final excellent coffee there (for €1.30), then back home to catch the 4pm bus.

The mirror side of the PSB express

Heading back to the UK tomorrow!

Ski Distance: 51.7km
Max Speed: 74.7 km/h
Ski vertical: 8643m
Runs: 20
Max slope: 28 degrees

Thursday

The weather was mixed again today, starting with low cloud, and remaining cold all day. After starting slowly and saying goodbyes to Maurice, we went down to Ecudets a couple of times, once down the black and once the red. The snow was pretty good, with some powder off piste.

I went over to Eucherts (via the Chevreuil black, which still had some cut up powder) for lunch at Aux Trois Ours. You can see them here, looking down on my coffee.


Then up the Eucherts chair just to get enough height to get down Marcassin (the black near the Petit Bois lift below Eucherts). I ended up doing it three times off piste to the right as you go down. Cut up and heavy, but good practice! Here's the view down to Le Chatelard from part way down.

Wednesday

The weather forecast was right. Snow, cold, with the wind increasing through the day. However, Maurice and I got up and then down to Fontaine Froide, where the visibility between the trees was much better, and the snow OK at the top and slush at the bottom.
We had a coffee at the place with the very small door (even Maurice had to duck!) and tepee. Richard was also there, as a sensible reader of this blog he had also found the only sane place to ski on the mountain!

We did a second run down Fontaine Froide, then back up the (awfully slow) Ecudets lift and out into the gale, zero visibility and horizontal flying ice to get back down as fast as possible to le front de neige.

Jo was snow-shoeing, we met her for a good lunch at Le Marmottes.(With Genèpi booked for this evening, since it is both Maurice's last night, and the chalet host's night off).

Tuesday

We headed for Italy. The pistes in La Rosière had been well groomed overnight, and the heavy, cut up, state of yesterday was replaced by some corduroy.  Unusually, both the left and right drag-lifts in the pass were running (we, of course, took the righthand one, since it is faster!). Although it was hot, we headed down for a coffee in the pass, which at €1.50 for an espresso is a bargain. As we were drinking our coffee, I was recognised! "Are you Jim? Skiing Jim?" It turned out to be Richard with whom I had stayed in Tignes Les Brevières a long time ago...
Since my general belief is that I am not famous even in my own family, this was a shock!


Maurice and I carried on down to the centre of La Thuile and went for pizzas at Lo Tata, which were excellent as usual. The snow low down was melting, but higher up and in the pass was beautiful. The run down to the café was great, however most of the black runs in the pass were closed; pretty much all that was open were the runs you need to get fro A to B.

After lunch, back up the bubble and homewards, into the normal wind in the pass.
Some of the views in Italy were great, here you can see the Matterhorn, if you know where to look...

Panorama over La Thuile including the Matterhorn (Monte Cervino)

Google also created this version, which may make the Matterhorn more obvious.

How Google thinks it should be enhanced!

As ever, the sudden view over France when coming back through the pass is a joy!


The weather forecast for tomorrow is snow all day and cold. So we may end up not doing much...

Monday

Lots of snow yesterday, but then rain overnight, so everything is very heavy. The link to Italy didn't open until 11-ish, so we arranged to meet Jo for lunch at Le Plan du Repos. She walked up from Eucherts.

Jo at Plan du Repos

Maurice on the mountain

We'll aim for Italy first thing tomorrow, since the pass should be open, and Wednesday is looking bad according to Méteo France.