Morzine Snow Report: 20th December 2011

The fantastic snow has led to an overdose of skiing and a resultant body backlash form this snow reporter. Today’s ski was curtailed by wooden legs and a general lethargy from all those recent powder days. But I did manage a few runs down the Pleney Stade du slalom and Piste B today, a red and blue respectively. These are the two basic routes into town and are often overlooked as people venture further afield to the Secteurs Nyon, Chamossiere and the Les Gets area.

Not surprisingly the snow was excellent, the pistes were lovely and off to the edges the tracks were partially filled in from previous days skiing. On a day when it is snowing hard it’s nice to sit in a telecabine and shelter from all that snow, it’ll keep you warm - unlike sitting on a chair lift. The visibility was not great but all the runs down from the Pleney are tree lined so if you stick close to the edges you do get some contrast.

Yesterday was a much bigger ski. We were up in the Linderets Secteur again but this time took advantage of the fact the TS Brocheaux had just opened for the first time this season. This allowed us to access Brocheaux Snowcross zone, basically a patrolled off piste area.

Fortunately we were some of the first on the lift and hence got relatively fresh tracks all the way back to the Brocheaux lift. The top of the area is wide open, initially to your right and then left as you climb up on the chairlift. As you pass directly over the area there is a little pinch point which becomes tracked out really quickly and gets a little bumpy, but it’s only short.

Being so wide open there is plenty of room for everyone to get in a huge run of fresh turns. It was brilliant fun with the snow billowing over our heads on every turn. Initially the visibility was not brilliant meaning we had to be a little cautious and feel the terrain rather than see it! Things soon brightened and we got some higher speed runs under our belts.

We decided to move on to the Chaux-Fleurie for a change of scene. Our timing was excellent as the sun came out as we were sitting on the chair! We made a dash for the off piste to the right of the chair and got some fantastic turns in between the little pine trees before checking the speed for the steeps through the cliff band above Linderets.

There were a lot of tracks but there was still an abundance of big patches of un-touched snow to hit. We could not get back up the lift fast enough for a repeat performance. We managed a few runs before the weather closed in again and the snow started.

Although we had made our way to Linderets via the Super M we decided on a home run via Le Crot down to the bottom of Prodains. There are some great little off piste cut throughs which we took advantage of despite the fatigue although a straight blast down this blue piste is always fun. A quick free bus ride, departing every 15 minutes and we were back in Morzine.

The forecast is for more snow, another 20-30cm today and 10-20 tomorrow. Thursday could be the pick of the upcoming days with some clear skies getting a look in.

Bon Ski