Alpe d'Huez Snow Report: 30th December 2015

Both the UK Met Office website and its French equivalent are predicting some precipitation towards Thursday evening/Friday morning. This is mainly due to the arrival of an occluded low pressure front full of warm moist air from the Atlantic region – hopefully delivering some snow to whole region.

Reports suggest anything between 30cm and 100cm of snow could be dumped – FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!.

And in town the local council workers have been busy placing more road marker poles for the benefit of the snow plough drivers, this is always a good sign for imminent snow fall.

Once again temperatures in resort have been reaching a balmy 10 and 12degC around lunchtime, with temperatures up on the PicBlanc only getting down to around 0degC. These Spring like temperatures have been leading to Spring-like conditions in the afternoons on the slopes. So without doubt the best of conditions are to be found in the mornings, with the slopes becoming a bit worn in the glorious afternoon sunshine.

Snow cover is currently holding steady at 55cm on the upper slopes with 25cm covering the lower slopes. The last reportable snow fall in resort was 5th December. Condition on piste remains incredibly good considering the relatively shallow snow depths.

The Grande Domaine ski area is currently served by 43 lifts operating to serve 38 pistes. Of which 23 lifts and 26 pistes are in the Alpe d’Huez area itself. The 38 pistes open consist of 16x green, 9x blue, 9x red and 4x black runs – so there really is something for all abilities.

The PicBlanc lift is now fully open to skiers (previously only open to walkers) and is providing access the Sarenne and Glacier black runs. The opening of the PicBlanc lift has helped take a bit off pressure off the Marmotte3 lift which had become quite busy over the Christmas period. So you can now access the Sarenne from either the PicBlanc or Marmottes3 lift.

There is only 1 green run open in Auris and the lifts are only operating to bring skiers across to the ski area of Alpe d’Huez, and back from the bottom of the valley at the end of the Sarenne.

The Domes Des Rousses section remains open and really helps to link things together and increase to whole “flow” of the Alpe d’Huez/Vaujany area.

Being that bit lower the towns of Oz (1350m), Vaujany (1250m) and Villard (1480m) haven't many runs open at the lower levels but are well served higher up.

Remember the pistes that are marked as closed, “ferme”, are indeed closed for a reason, and whilst at first glance they may appear skiable, you don't know what's round the corner – which is probably the reason the slope is closed - don't be a hero.

Resort is pretty much in full swing in this busy Christmas/New Year period and lift queues are longer than previously reported, although not horrendous, and the savvy skier can still nip around avoiding the worst of the queues. One simple tip is to avoid taking your lunch when ski school take their lunches (around 12 till 2pm) by hitting the slopes hard in this 2 hour window you really can take advantage of the shorter lift queues and maximise your time out on the mountain.

On the lower slopes generally conditions on the DMC area are better than those over in Les Bergers, however being a busier sectuer the volume of skiers takes its toll on the DMC snow cover as the day wears on.

All the mountain restaurants are now open and those not located on “open” pistes have made provision of either simple narrow snow paths to access them or in the case of La Cabane (above Les Bergers) who have brought in a 4x4 pick up truck to act as an ad-hoc taxi shuttle service, and is serving the restaurant well as it always seems really busy.