CFH no - seems like a way to injure yourself in a new way or just shake your spine to pieces
@Phil it indeed can be blooming freezing in Arc 2000 top of La Plagne in late Jan (wind of course the main issue) .. as for “mid layer” I am of the view that’s a fleece/sweatshirt/hipster checked shirt/mtb softshell/gilet ... when mixed with quality baselayer (eg ice breaker) and a decent windproof jacket. I like a fleece neck roll too - mine are “turtle fur”
BTW if weather is poor tree runs in Peisey are quite good
igm and Jambalaya in agreement - it must be bad 😉
Wow - that Club Med place is £20k for two adults and two kids for a week over new year - not including flights, transfers, ski hire, ski pass etc etc!!
Cb, are you certain the currency wasn’t set to the Zimbabwe dollar?
You could do quite a few nice ski trips for that!
Jambalaya - thanks!!
DTs - nope, would be cheaper to have a mortgage on a chalet!
Or rent for the season and sub let the weeks you didn’t want to use!
As featured in the Sunday Times this weekend. (In Serre Che, no less!)A big phatt no from me!
In the words of Dr Frasier Crane:
[quote=cb Made up]Wow - that Club Med place is £20k for two adults and two kids for a week over new year - not including flights, transfers, ski hire, ski pass etc etc!!
I thought the whole point of Club med is that it's all inclusive - perhaps not flights, so you can do self drive, but certainly the package I've been looking at includes flights, transfers, lift pass and tuition
£7k for two adults including flights and transfers but not lift passes or equipment hire.
45cm forecast overnight for Whitefish and other Montana resorts... sadly Rockies only getting a bit but should still refresh conditions prior to the Christmas week.
Saw or should I say heard the club med place today. It’s up the mountain not in the village. Looked nice from s distance. But the music was even loader than arc 2000
Been a few years since I did CM but actually worked out good value as full board, all drinks, all day ski school/guiding and lift pass
Enjoyed Kastle MX 98 skis. Spent most of the time off piste and messing about in trees and jumps etc. Always enjoy a ski when you have no idea you are wearing them!! Not bad on piste too. Fast and carved well but a little short for me.
Should be s better season with such a good base. Awesome views on Mt Blanc massif today.
Back to reality now with Sleezy jet and GVA airport
nbt - not sure what I made up? £20k plus for four over NY. Nothing included apart from room, food and drinks by the looks of it. Go a week later and it drops £7k but even that is expensive. Shame as that type of skiing holiday would appeal. Haven't looked at other Club Med places so maybe they are better value but even a top end chalet will be less than half the price over NY.
EDIT this was price for a sinlge suite for 4. Maybe they have cheaper rooms but all that was left was suite options - there were many types so I assumed they are all referred to as suites?
Yo can buy a flat for four for £40k in many smaller resorts at present. And a nice flat with a view over of the pistes for £60-100k. Go whenever you want, eat at home or in the restaurant of your choice, pick a ski instructor/guide to suit your profile and ambitions at the ski school or guide centre. As for drinking, a mug's game in ski resorts. Lunchtime drinking puts many in hospital with stupid accidents and evening drinking at altitude will leave you dehydrated with a hangover which won't do your sking or tendons any good.
[quote=cb said]nbt - not sure what I made up? £20k plus for four over NY. Nothing included apart from room, food and drinks by the looks of it. Go a week later and it drops £7k but even that is expensive. Shame as that type of skiing holiday would appeal. Haven't looked at other Club Med places so maybe they are better value but even a top end chalet will be less than half the price over NY.
EDIT this was price for a sinlge suite for 4. Maybe they have cheaper rooms but all that was left was suite options - there were many types so I assumed they are all referred to as suites?
ahh the "made up" bit is from the auto quote
the "suites" bit is what's killing you there. They do have cheaper rooms, I was looking at a trip in march for £1500, but selecting a suite doubles the price. They do say though that prices are "all-inclusive" which apparently means
Ski pass & ski lessons for 12yrs and older included
+Non-ski activities Included
+Full-board gourmet cuisine & open bar Included
Day & night entertainment Our G.O's at your service
Not sure if all resorts are the same, but as I said I thought the selling point of Club Med was that all prices were all inclusive
Attention Verglas !
Just when you think the snow is going to be perfect for the festive season along come a few drops of rain and the snow around 2000m turns to concrete.
Edit: weather forecast says snow at 800m on Friday. 8)
They do warn people these days:
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Anyone driving out to France this season should be aware of the new vignette system - it’s all linked to pollution zones - some are permanent and some are temporary depending on pollution levels.
The vignette only costs about a fiver and is dependent on your vehicle - available online:
https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr
Be aware, lots of fraudulent sites out there will charge you 30 euros for the same thing - the above is the official site.
Apologies if it’s been posted earlier in this thread - might have missed it!
^^^^^ crying out for a layback under that banner/ sign, leaving the skier to eat snow whilst said snowboarder gets all the girls in the lift line #sofreshandsoclean ^^^^^
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Dashed, The vignette is just if you are venturing into certain towns and cities isn't it? Bit like there is in London..
All the "girls" in the lift line today were under 15 or over 50.
The vignette is for Paris, Lyon-Villeurbanne, Grenoble, Strasbourg and Toulouse. It's on test in Bordeaux and Lille.
Club Med. Like I said you don’t pay the website price, Samoens price difference suite vs normal room is huge. I think we usually pay about £1000 pp a week for Peisey-V in March which includes 3 excellent meals a day, drinks, skis, pass and classes/groups. Peisey is a 4 Trident (great terrace, indoor/outdoor pool), Samoens is 5 trident. I looked for the summer and it’s £900 a week website price.
As above Vignette not needed for going sking unless you drive through Lyon but new motorway goes past. We have ours for Paris of course but its only needed inside the Periph so most Brits wouldn’t need one even if going “via Paris”
I think I might give this a try next week 🙂
There are loads of new temporary vignette zones, including Savoie and Haute Savoie so if we get a sticky high pressure like last year when air quality down in the valleys was awful then most likely they'll be invoked - click through the links in this site to see the maps, but basically it's all of the northern French Alps - PDS, Bourg St Maurice Val T etc https://www.crit-air.fr/en.html
The new environmental zone ZPA of Haute-SavoieIn October 2017, the entire department of Haute-Savoie with Annecy as its prefecture, announced the settlement of an air protection zone. In case of air pollution peak, the prefect is now able to make the Crit’Air badge mandatory and exclude the Crit’Air categories 4 and 5 from traffic ...
Doesn't mean you can't drive in the areas, but depending on how bad the pollution is, they'll restrict the worst polluting vehicles [i]and those with no vignette![/i]
There's also some talk of the Grenoble fixed zone including the motorway that you'd use to get to some of the southern resorts such as Val D'Isere (rather than it just being a city congestion thing like London) - won't really effect me, so not looked into that side of it. Lengthy discussion over on Snowheads.
How did we get along over Christmas my fellow shreadheads?
If anyone is looking for a last min getaway Les Arc is prime at the moment. Put over a foot down yesterday and is forecast for 2-3foot more in the next week.
Stoner Jr wanted Xmas (and hence his B'day) at home this year so we havent been out to the flat in Morzine yet, but snow conditions look best for a few years.
However, have now booked flights to go Jan, Feb, Mar and April for a total of 18+days on snow. Cant wait.
Out in the grand massif doing my 2nd season. Awesome conditions!
On my way to La Rosiere in the morning, only 3 days on the slopes however there’s no kids so it’ll be 3 full days - can’t bloody wait. Just wish I could sleep as I need to be up at 3:30!
A few shots from the last few days.
Balcony on Christmas Eve
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Looking over towards Leogang/Lofer
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Last people off the hill yesterday
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The nipper launching off a stump
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Me looking sketchy as usual
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Massive snow dump today and sunshine tomorrow so off to bed!
All looking/sounding very good all!
Arctic in Calgary. -38C including windchill and -28 actual. So we've bailed once already.. currently packing for tomorrow morning and hoping it warms up to -18C so sweajnr can do more than ride the gondola.
Much needed snow on the way as well.
Just had 6 days boarding in Val Thorens with a few folks. Been taking it easy, mucking about in the powder on the edge of pistes and the like.
Weather has varied from awesome to pretty sketchy. Yesterday was best morning by far, went high, not a soul on the pistes and plenty of powdery stuff for me to ride through.
Transfer day today, we’re supposed to be heading home but the forecasted 2 metres (yes 2m) of snow last night might have something to say about that.
Anybody heading to the Three Valleys in the next couple of weeks should have a whale of a time.
PS: just heard the first avalanche control explosion of the morning...
Still snowing heavily in Tignes / Val d'Isere. Roads keep getting blocked by avalanches then re-opened. Not sure what time we'll leave today, waiting for coach to arrive....
Should be awesome in a day or so once they've re-opened everything. [url= http://www.tas.fr/en/products/avalanche-products/535-gazex-gazflex-en ]Gazexes[/url] had been going off all morning, but stopped for now.
Been passing the time digging the chalet path / steps out from under 2' of snow...
Coach is now 3 hours late. Going to be a long day...
I’m in la Rosier, cars we parked yesterday are completely (and I mean completely) buried. The local news is showing massive queues in Borg - no one is able to get up or down the mountain. I’m here another 48hrs, hopefully the roads will be cleared for me to make it out - and I can get some more snow chains after both of my new ones snapped on the way up!
Even the piste is off piste today. Roughly 50cm of snow sitting on the compacted stuff. Tomorrow is going to be sunny so I’ve slacked off a bit early to save my legs, I suspect it’ll be bedlam tomorrow!
75m queue to buy a pass today (if you needed one) and then queues for all the lifts, cars parked/abandonned for a few kms down from the resort. I've never seen so many people skiing between Christmas and New Year.
On piste it felt a bit like l'Etoile in the rush hour, we gave up at 11:30 and will stick to X-C/rando till some people go home.
It's busier than usual here in Austria too, maybe all the kids in Europe have the same holidays this year?
Madame making light work of some fresh on her 50:50 Koas a couple of days ago. It's a soggy mess off-piste now.
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Where are you Edukator? No queuing here at all - it’s like a grave yard tonight!
Pyrenees, Tinybits. Gourette yesterday, mountain biking on the plain today. The accents and number plates were from far and wide but mainly the south west and west coast. Less Spanish than usual.
Well, as predicted yesterday was a long day - finally left resort at 2:30, missed flight, got put up in hotel in Grenoble at about 9:30/10pm
Special flight coming out to pick us all up - should be back home 24 hours later than planned.
Pity the folk in the traffic up to the three valleys last night, it was gridlock almost from Grenoble to Moutiers
IVe various friends spread around the alps, one has a family for lessons this am that took 12h to get from gva to val yesterday
Well, as predicted yesterday was a long day - finally left resort at 2:30, missed flight, got put up in hotel in Grenoble at about 9:30/10pmSpecial flight coming out to pick us all up - should be back home 24 hours later than planned.
Pity the folk in the traffic up to the three valleys last night, it was gridlock almost from Grenoble to Moutiers
Same at Chambery, they had the Red Cross out to look after a few 100 people staying the night - mainly Crystal customers. We were with Inghams who sorted a hotel and an extra flight first thing the next day. Some of the Crystal guys had no idea when they were getting home, Crystal was struggling to find coaches on NYE to ferry people to Lyon airport and then back home in the UK (as they weren't flying to the right airport).
[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4598/39379981682_559143c80f_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4598/39379981682_559143c80f_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/22ZSGzq ]Red Cross at Chambery airport[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
[url= https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4735/24544155777_0ec8c90329_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4735/24544155777_0ec8c90329_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/DoTdpB ]Red Cross at Chambery airport[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
I got back from VT at lunchtime today. Road to Moutier was closed from 5-6, some absolute cowboy of a coach driver meant that I got on my flight with literally 5 minutes to spare!
It's been a hell of a week though, hit some great powder on my snowboard (which rides like shite off piste) and I also had my first 4 ski lessons-12 hours in total, pretty chuffed with how much I improved. Heading to Jasna in Slovakia tomorrow so will try and fit a bit more skiing in there too.
