The Courchnet.Com Courchevel Snow Report

Cloud low down in Meribel looking from La Loze

Today exceeded my early morning expectations by some distance. It was grey and overcast first thing with low cloud and the day looked to be a write off but a quick look at the Courchnet webcams and the mountain was clearly bathed in bright sunshine higher up with a sea of cloud filling up the valleys. The weather this morning was less cold than the Siberian conditions which we’ve been enduring for the last few weeks but nevertheless it was still unusually cold for March with -11°c at the top of La Saulire, rising to -6°c by early afternoon. The predicted snowfall which I mentioned on Tuesday failed to materialise. I suppose I don’t blame France Meteo too much for this as a deep Atlantic depression which dumped half a metre of snow on Barcelona then headed into the Med. to cause havoc in Majorca, Menorca then Sardinia before giving Northern Italy a bit of a pasting, looked to be coming our way but then stalled when it ran into the Alps.

At least France Meteo had the good grace to modify their forecast this morning and their prediction of sunshine all day proved to be spot on. Another major forecaster, who I won’t name, are still persisting with ‘It snowed this morning, it’s snowing now and it will snow all evening’ which is just fantasy. I wonder sometimes if less dependence on computers and a bit more ‘looking out the window’ might give them a bit more credibility.

We got to the top of La Saulire and Combe de la Saulire was as flat as Tesco’s front window with the added benefit that there seemed to only about 3 other people skiing it. I think some of this may well have been due to the murk hanging over Meribel in particular, causing a lot of people to think the weather wasn’t very good. ‘Whatever’, as my 10 year says at frequent intervals, and we flew down without any concern for other skiers (…as there weren’t any) and my other half with a grin a mile wide in her new ski boots AND new skis.

We looked at the sheet of A4 in the lift station which tells you which runs have been pisted (…they have an ‘E’ next to them meaning Entretenues or pisted), and also which piste is the 'Piste du Jour', which turned out to be Combe des Pylones. This is a black run that runs alongside Combe de la Saulire but you get onto it by heading towards ‘M’ along the ridge then it’s a left turn. It’s a real black run being consistently steep and it’s north facing. When it’s been pisted it’s one of Courchevel’s best and today it was just brilliant. In the sun with crisp deep snow to ski on.

There are no queues for any lifts at all and that is likely to continue for the next 3 weeks. The French school holidays are all after Easter this year with the major Paris holidays not even starting until the 18th April. This high pressure system that appears to have taken up residence over Ireland is dragging northerly winds across the Alps, keeping us cooler than normal so with light use and low temperatures, the snow-pack is staying in terrific condition at all times of the day. In Le Praz, at 1300m, the lake is still frozen solid and our carpark has a 6 inch layer of (lethal) ice.

I can’t see very much changing over the next week so blue skies; cold; blazing sun; terrific snow and Courchevel opened as your own private playground. What else could you want?







Don't forget you can find out what events are on during the coming season with our What's On Calendar.

[1] Generally described in more detail in the resort avalanche bullettin (e.g. altitude, aspect, type of terrain etc.)
[2] Additional load:

• High: e.g. group of skiers, piste machine, avalanche blasting
• Low: e.g. skier, walker
• Steep slopes: Slopes with an incline of more than about 30°
• Steep extreme slopes: Particularly unfavourable in terms of the incline, terrain profile, proximity to ridge, smoothness of underlying ground surface.

This is an indication of status at time of writing. Please check latest situation at the lift stations before setting out.