Morzine Snow Report: 16th March 2012

Sunshine in the Portes du Soleil. Very mild, very sunny

featured in Snow report Author Phil Smith, Updated 24 October 2014

It was a lovely ski day today; more sunshine and mild temperatures. The snow was really good in that spring skiing kind of way, soft and forgiving after things had warmed up a little but with some scraped off, icier patches.

It did not take long for things to warm up, I think it barely froze overnight, perhaps just higher on the mountain. For a change we headed over to Les Crosets via the Mossettes lift out of Linderets. The ridge line at the top of the lift is the Grand Conche which marks the border between France and Switzerland. We dropped down the piste to towards the Col des Portes du Soleil, taking a turn to skiers' right, onto the wide open red run leading into Les Crosets. This piste is directly south facing so does get cut up and bumpy quickly.

Conversely the two big wide reds under the Les Crosets lift on the opposite side of the valley do not suffer under the sun so much. We were a little caught out as we set off as the piste was relatively icy, although not boiler plate hard. It was quite nice once we did a few turns and got used to it, so much so we did a number of runs, quickly getting back to the top each time on the express chair.

Returning to France we headed up the TK Ripaille drag/T-bar lift (the choice is yours) and then dropped down onto the TS Chavanette. The latter takes you back to the Grande Conche ridge line over the top of the infamous Swiss wall. This is basically a patrolled but very much un-pisted run, very steep and full of big moguls. I don’t personally think it’s a great ski but the moguls seemed relatively small today and they were soft. We decided to drop in - it’s got to be done once per year. Things were not too bad. That soft snow really helped with the grip and ability to reign in the speed.

The final part of our ski was in and around the Secteur Chavanette. Firstly we blasted down the pistes using the Choucas and Fornet lifts to get back up top again. Things did seem a little busy on the pistes here though so we dropped into the Canyon du Schott for some moguls. This proved to be a great move. The moguls here are much smaller than the Swiss wall and you can actually attack them properly, the slacker gradient helps also. It was all really good fun although at some points you are skiing directly under the lift and have plenty of spectators if it all goes wrong.

The weather is due to change a little bit on Sunday/Monday with some snow forecast – winter is not over yet.

Bon Ski