Christmas and New Year have both come and gone, and during this time snow has been quite thin on the ground. Although the snow conditions haven’t been great, we have been lucky in that the Portes du Soleil (specifically Avoriaz) has apparantly had the best snow in the whole of the European Alps. This wasn’t as exciting as it sounds with low depths at the top of the slopes and artificial snow at the bottom but despite the conditions most of our guests have reported excellent skiing over the festive period.
Thankfully the conditions have all changed for the better with heavy snow falling over the last 24 hours. With snow also forecast for tonight, and then again on Thursday we should hopefully be back to where we would normally expect to be at this time of year.
So is this simply a blip in the normal weather patterns – winter coming slightly later this year, or is it a sign of the dreaded global warming? Well given that this situation has happened before approximately every 15 years, and that in the past there has been even less snow, I tend to believe it is less to do with climate change, and more an illustration of the fact that we are dealing with the most unpredictable force in the world – mother nature. Just because the snow comes in November 10 years in a row is no guarantee that it will arrive in November during the 11th year!
And what of the claims that the European ski industry is dead, and that everyone should head to North America? The pundits who wrote those particular claims obviously have quite short memories becuase it was only 2 seasons ago that Whistler in Canada didn’t receive any significant snow until mid Feb!
Anyway, all speculation aside, the snow is here so lets enjoy it! We still have some January availability and we are offering discounts on everything that’s left. Also, we still have some spaces on our Off Piste Adventure Course on the 27th Jan – luxury accommodation and serious skiing!
Enjoy the snow…
Hi
We spend the Christmas week out in Chatel, just at base of Linga Lift. we managed to ski most days but it was a bit worn and very hard and icy near the bottom of all runs. Avoriaz was very busy, some monster queues at the list back across town. We saw many people being carted of after accidents.
Glad the snow has improved a little, although it seems a little warm still. Keep the regular weather updates as it is nice to keep up with real info and points of view rather than the general stuff that appears on the main websites.
will be back out in mid feb so lets hope the snow continues to improve