MegèveSki

First lifts and a smattering of fresh snow at Cote 2000

The weather forecast yesterday suggested that we might get a small amount of fresh snow above 1700m and this morning the temperature at apartment level was down to around 3.8'C so we figured that it might have been right... We drove up the Cote 2000 base at ~1500m as we decided that it was the quickest way to get to the most likely location of any fresh snow. We got there for first lifts and were rewarded by a 2-3cm layer of fresh snow on top of lightly frozen grooming.

We actually arrived at the Cote 2000 base at 9am, before the first lift, we didn't realise that it didn't start up until 9.15, and the first thing we saw was masses of young racers waiting for the lift.

There's a junior open race tournament over the next few days and these guys were getting in some last minute practice. Luckilly they seemed to stay away from the areas that we were using, though occasionally they'd wiz past in small packs.

The conditions this morning were nearer to freeze/thaw than we've been having recently; so the ideal start time was probably nearer 10am than 9am. However, I think it was better to be there first thing and have a slightly crusty run or two as the snow softened very quickly and it got progressively busier as the morning went on; the car park filled up and people completed their ski over from the other Rochebrune pistes.

The grooming was, initially, a bit crap; the crapest we've seen here in Megève; rutted, lumpy and full of gigantic frozen "death cookies". This was probably due to the slushy state of the snow the night before. The first run from the top had us dealing with the lightly frozen, rutted grooming with the 3cm of fresh on top to make it look nice; not ideal but better than slush. By the time we were on our second and third runs the snow had softened and the ruts had been converted to choppy snow lower down. The mid morning runs were probably the best as the snow quickly became quite heavy and choppy and we called it a day at 12.30 and headed home.