MegèveSki

Sunshine and 6-10cm of fresh snow in La Clusaz

We went back to La Clusaz today and parked at the La Balme base area. We got their pretty early, around 9.20ish and were somewhat surprised at how busy the place was but figured that it was due to the fact that most of the rest of La Clusaz was now closed. We didn't realise that the early crowd was here because the rain we'd had turned to snow here last night and there was plenty of fresh tracks to be had.

We took the bubble and then the Col de Balme chair and skied the Blanchot red a couple of times. The snow was good, 10cm or so of new snow on a hard base. Much nicer than last time we were here. With the whole of the the off-piste area around Col de Balme back as an untouched blank canvas it's easy to see why this place is so popular with the gnarly freeride types. As we sat on the chair lift we could see a stream of people taking the long traverse beneath the ridge to our right and finding their line and making their mark in the fresh snow. Some were more competant than others.

We had a coffee and then took the La Bergerie chair and dropped down to the Torchere drag lift. This lift serves a couple of reds and a very long black, which was closed (which pretty much meant that it didn't have any piste markers on it so it just merged with the mass of off-piste). We did a couple of runs for the La red (head left from the drag lift) and then decided to try the Le Botion red to the right of the drag. Interestingly the Le Botion red was hard to distinguishe from the surrounding off-piste, It doesn't look like they'd groom it at any time of year and halfway down it drops through a tricky gulley that came as a bit of a surprise to us. Most people, it seemed, had cut off from the piste and joined the other red above the gulley so the snow in there hadn't been skied much today and was pretty lumpy. We both got down it OK but it was the most un piste like piste we've skied in a while. We took the drag back up and skied back down La and then Miche took the La Bergerie blue whilst I took the Les Choucas black. The black was reasonably wide, reasonably steep and pretty choppy. I expect it's a bump field earlier in the season but today it was just choppy snow. I took a reasonably straight line and seemed to manage to keep my arms and hands in a reasonable position, even if I had to remind myself sometimes.

We ate at the self-service restaurant at the top of bubble and then took the La Balme chair again and I skied down the off-piste under the chair. By now much of the off-piste was tracked out but it was still possible to make your mark. Again at the black we split up and I skied the run better the second time. We did another similar run down from the chair and then called it a day as the snow was getting pretty soft and our legs were tired.