Morzine Snow Report: 7th February 2012
Siberian cold snap in town
The last few days have been marked by bitterly cold weather with day time highs reaching a not so balmy minus 15 degrees. With wind chill on top of the mountain, who knows what the mercury would read but I’m guessing considerably lower than that! The bonus being that what snow we have, and we have had loads, is not going to disappear anytime soon.
I had a little ski up the Pleney today and it was a little ski for me. It’s easy enough to put enough layers on to keep the body warm, it’s more the extremities I was having difficulty with. I set off up the télésiège de la Crusaz followed by the des Mouilles lift to reach the Pleney plateau opposite the telecabine. Maybe the latter is a better choice on a cold day but it was not so much the going up that got me as the going down.
I headed down Piste H which turns into the Stade run directly to the bottom of the Pleney bubble. The wind-chill on my face was considerable. Even with a scarf pulled over me, the wind seemed to find little gaps here and there especially around my ears! Still, the skiing was quite good.
Surprisingly off to the edges of the piste, all the untracked fresh snow was still nice and soft and great to ski in. It wasn’t solid underneath either so it was possible to push quite hard into it. Back on the piste things were mostly good although the Stade itself had some very hard/ icy patches to watch out for. Basically all that skier traffic scrapes off the nice soft snow and compresses the layer underneath. The piste basher, although making a nice soft layer on top for early morning skiers, is effectively compressing the layer under that into very hard pack – good edges are required!
I had another run of the Piste H/Stade combo and returned to the top via télésiège Crusaz and Mouilles before thinking I’d had enough. This time round I opted for a more leisurely run down Piste B, thinking the faster I skied the colder my face was getting.
On a cold day the Pleney area is not a bad place to hang out. There are a number of great red and blue runs, something for everyone really, all dropping back down to the bottom of Pleney. Importantly you can, if you are more sensible than me, use the bubble to get back to the top thereby keeping that much warmer. There are a number of great little restaurants around the top of the lifts. However, I prefer the Les Mouilles at the bottom of the lift of the same name. Or maybe the little place at the bottom of the d’Atray lift. Ducking into one of these in between a few runs and grabbing a vin chaud seems like the thing to do!
The outlook for the next few days is predominantly sunshine and rising temperatures, although still around -8 degrees! Friday is forecast to be bitterly cold, again! Watch out for frostnip in these conditions, if your skin is going a waxy colour then cover up. The skin is still flaking off the end of my nose now!
Bon Ski
