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Courmayeur snow report
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From dodgy loos to one long drop - 19/4/2010 18:20by Paddy O'Powder With the lifts at his home resort of Courmayeur now closed, Paddy O'Powder is having to look further afield for his snow. But not quite as far as some of his neighbours...Report filed April 19, 2010 The long spring days are finally here. Due to some local shenanigans over the ownership of the lifts, Coumayeur's slopes sit, below perfect cloudless skies, in near pristine condition without a skier to be seen. If you don't want to tackle the Toula Glacier or Vallée Blanche the best bet is to head over to nearby La Thuile. This ski area is coming on in leaps and bounds with investment in both new runs (a World Cup standard downhill) and new lifts. The Italian part links up seamlessly with the French area of La Rosière and offers an impressive 150kms of mainly cruisy intermediate runs. These are also great for spring skiing as they are easy to bash flat and don't have too may steep drop offs that get bare and worn from the passage of too many skiers. The one thing the two areas do need to invest in, however, are some decent mountain loos. It appears that the bars and restaurants want to stick with that wild frontier feeling by maintaining, and in some cases re-installing the famous "crouch and pray because there's no where to sit" affairs...
What's less well known about La Thuile is the excellent heli-skiing that's available. Taking off from the abandoned French/Italian border post on the Piccolo San Bernardo Pass there are all sort of descents to be had. Most give you a minimum of 750 vertical metres - and the cost is about half what you'd pay in Switzerland. Skiing around Saturday showed that if anyone from the UK can beat the crowds and get out to the Alps by car it's well worth it. The snow stays hard and wintery until at least lunchtime and the worried looks of the guys who have to dig out the summer road from Italy to France in a few weeks confirm that it's going to be white and wintery up here until well into June.
For a complete contrast to this easy-going, end-of-season atmosphere a mountain guide friend of mine from Courmayeur is currently preparing to climb up and then ski down one of Mt Everest's most daunting couloirs. The Hornbein Couloir has never been successfully skied before and looking at the stats it's not hard to see why. It drops straight down Everest's North Face for 3000 metres, and is narrow, icy and at around 50°, horribly steep. 50° may not sound much compared to a vertical wall at 90° degrees but imagine propping a ladder up against your house, standing at the top of it and then trying to ski down it for a run that's three times the height of Ben Nevis. For good measure imagine having to do all that after having just climbed Everest without oxygen! Edmond Joyeusaz may well be Courmayeur's Chief Guide and an ex-Italian ski champion but even for him this will be a quite a trip. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Click here for our La Thuile resort report. Click here for our La Rosière resort report. Sorry, we don't have an Everest resort report just yet... Blizzards, Blossom and Mad Mountain Bikers - 13/4/2010 10:28by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on an epic weekend of glacier skiing in Courmayeur - April 13, 2010 It had to happen really. Courmayeur's main ski lifts closed last Sunday afternoon and by Sunday evening a blizzard was raging that left a fresh layer of thick powder on the now immaculate but deserted slopes. The ownership of the lift company is changing and it appears that the incumbent has decided that snow or not, it's time to shut up shop and cut costs to the bone. Last week-end was however memorable. Two friends of mine from Zermatt decided that after a season of mountain guiding and ski teaching what they really needed was a holiday. Andreas Fux, one of Switzerland's top mountain guides and his girlfriend Prisca who raced on the Swiss Downhill Team felt that a week-end in and around Monte Bianco was just the ticket.
The cable car ride up to Punta Helbronner at 3,462m gives a fabulous view of just about the whole of Mt Blanc's southern flank and is the starting point for some of Europe's longest and most impressive off-piste runs. The granite pillars and massive glaciers form an imposing panorama of rock, ice and, this year, metres and metres of snow. One of the largest ice falls that you see from the tiny, 1960's-era Monte Bianco cable car is the infamous Brenva Glacier. It's more than 2,300m high, 5.5kms long and looks like something straight out of the Himalayas.
It has attracted lots of Alpinists over the past 200 years but surely the strangest were a battalion of Italian Bersaglieri, who were dispatched from their barracks in Milan in July 1909 to scale the mighty Brenva Glacier on their bicycles! These specialised cycle troops, whose role was to supplement the Italian Army's practically horseless cavalry units, had to carry not just all of their kit but also the world's first, and probably heaviest, folding bikes on their backs for the massive climb. They didn't have ropes or ice axes so had to cut thousands of steps in the ice with just their bayonets. No mention seems to be have been made in the contemporary reports about why they had to climb the glacier in the first place (practice for a slow-motion invasion of France perhaps) or even how they got back down again. Our Toula descent got off to a fairly bumpy start as the snow was frozen solid from the night before and we had to bounce across hundreds of old ski ruts that had been left in the previous afternoon's slush. Once through the seracs, about halfway down, the ruts vanished and we glided onto the most perfect transformed spring snow. The rest of the run to the mid-station felt like skiing on velvet. Heading back up to Punta Helbronner we stepped back into winter for the descent to Chamonix. The snow was cold, crisp and not at all spring-like. We skied a steeper, deserted variation of the Vallée Blanche whilst watching the hundreds of skiers descending from the Aiguille du Midi on the French side. As you descend towards Chamonix the run takes you right up close to the massive crevasses and seracs. They're piled up on top of one another like thousands of Gaudi-designed ice houses - all tumbling down in a frozen tsunami of blue and white. No wonder it's called the Mer de Glace.
Even after all the fantastic days this season, last Saturday has to rate as one of the best. The combination of near perfect spring conditions, deserted off-piste descents and some of the world's most spectacular mountain scenery is very hard to beat. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Errol Flynn and the Courmayeur Connection - 7/4/2010 19:18by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on 60cm of fresh snow in Courmayeur over the weekend, and his friend's attempt to ski it on one leg - April 7, 2010 The famous phrase "In like Flynn" was coined for Errol Flynn and his remarkable success with the ladies. His adventures in Courmayeur a few years ago could have easily left him with the moniker "Flayed Alive like Flynn". Before we get on to Errol and his alpine adventures, however, a few words about current conditions. It definitely feels like "end of term" in Courmayeur at the moment. The sun has finally come out and has given us a couple of days of real deckchair weather. These gorgeous days are just made for sitting watching the sun on the brilliant white peaks whilst you sample an Italian gelato but they were preceded by a full-on blast of winter that left 60cms of fresh snow at 2000m and over a metre at 3000m. The Easter treat this year was a couple of hours of charging through fresh thigh-deep snow before it turned, as it always does at this time of year, to the alpine equivalent of chilled blamange. It was fabulous while it lasted but just dreadful by lunchtime.
I had my Salomon Rockers out for the morning and they proved to be fabulous in the deep stuff, but nigh on impossible to use once the morning powder turned to tight chopped up moguls. Trying to make it through the moguls on skis that are 192cms long, are 147mm wide under the foot, and feature a massive rocker that starts just after the front of the binding, is one of the real challenges in skiing. One of the friends I was skiing with had however an even greater problem to surmount. A minor nosedive into the powder at one point in the morning meant he lost one of his skis, it appeared to be buried just next to him so imagine his surprise when he picked it up by the binding only to discover that there was no ski attached. The binding had snapped completely off the ski! For a good skier, skiing down the piste on one leg is no problem at all. Gianluca however managed to make leaping through the deep, solidifying sludge look almost effortless even with the broken ski strapped to his back. This caused no end of consternation to the people he passed many of whom were flat on their backs struggling just to dig themselves out of the very same sludge.
We were skiing close to the pistes in Val Veny avoiding at all costs the off-piste routes we'd normally head out to. The avalanche danger was, and still is, rated four on a scale where the maximum is five. These are the sort of days when the head has to rule the heart and you make sure that you never get caught out somewhere you shouldn?t be. One person who did get caught out a long time ago in Courmayeur was Errol Flynn. In 1953 he put his life savings into the production of a film about William Tell, the first reel of which was filmed in the spectacular alpine valleys above Courmayeur. He didn't make it to the second reel as he discovered that the Roman investors he was in business with had decided it was much better idea to spend Errol's 50% rather than touching their own part of the investment. When the cash ran out, the Romans vanished and poor old Errol and the rest of the film crew had to do a runner before the Courmayeur locals tied him up with his emerald green tights and started using him for bow and arrow practice. The first reel of the film that old Errol left behind still exists and was actually shown a few years ago at Courmayeur's annual film festival. Easter Monday was lovely and brought the crowds out but by yesterday the holidays were over, and suddenly Courmayeur was changing back into its traditional guise of a sleepy little alpine town. I went for a ski tour with two of my WeLove2Ski colleagues who wanted to see what skinning uphill was all about. We climbed up a deserted road for a couple of hours and practised the reverse kick turns that feel a bit like origami for your legs before heading off for a well deserved lunch at the famous Maison Vieille restaurant. On the other side of the valley we could see the avalanches cascading down from the south side of Mt Blanc, spectacular to watch as long as you?re at a safe distance. The huge number of serious (and fatal) accidents across the whole area from Val d'Isere to Courmayeur to Chamonix and beyond means that even the most benign Ski Touring routes are strictly off-limits until conditions calm down. The lifts close here next weekend but that's not the end of the season for me: I'll be out and about, both on the mountaineering lifts that stay open and of course on my skins. There's far too much snow to even think about summer just yet. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Still too much sticky, gooey snow at high levels - 29/3/2010 15:57by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - March 29, 2010 The old 'snowfalls abundant' that the local weather forecasts promised us for this weekend didn't actually materialise. Last week's rain and the thaw at lower levels also brought a fair amount of wet heavy, snow above 2000m. The mountains looked wonderful but the conditions at all altitudes are very dangerous at the moment. There have been lots of avalanches and landslides on the steep slopes above Courmayeur village which have left some very scary looking black and white scenery and everyone is just waiting for the conditions to stabilse before venturing out into Courmayeur's off-piste.
The weekend saw more rain at lower levels and a lot more sticky, gooey snow at higher levels leading to a general avalanche level of 4 (on the scale of O to 5). I did spot some people heading off into the Canale di Dolonne, one of Courmayeur's best known descents, but before long I could see that they'd stopped, turned around and decided to climb back out of the couloir. This would have meant at least an hour of struggling up a 35 degree slope through thigh-deep sludge but at least it was safer than heading into the steep-sided gully that would leave little room for manoeuvre if the worst happened.
This winter really has been one of the longest, coldest and snowiest that Courmayeur has had in years - you simply have to look at the lack of bronzed faces amongst the people that spend everyday on the mountains. I don't think I've ever seen so many pale ski instructors and lifties. Next weekend is Easter and it's traditionally a sort of last blast of winter for many of the regular Italian visitors who are already dreaming of showing off their latest swimsuits and extra tight Speedos. The beach is calling and given the lack of Spring sunbathing there's been in the mountains this year many people have decided to call it a day ski-wise. Surprisingly, the Courmayeur lift company have also decided to close early, on April 11. Sod's Law will probably mean of course that we'll have beautiful weather with stable conditions right through until the end of the month and no easy way for the Italian regulars, or the legions of new fans of the area from Chamonix, to ski the southern side of Mont Blanc in all its Spring glory. Luckily the creaky old lifts on the Toula Glacier on the shoulder of Mt Blanc itself will be running so most of the action looks like it'll be taking place over there. This is an amazing playground of steeps, glaciers, perfect Spring snow and, of course, the famous Pavillon restaurant. For anyone who knows how to handle themselves in proper off-piste conditions (ie. no groomed runs) to sneak back onto if don't like it, this is heaven. We're due more snow and rain this week but hopefully it'll get colder and clearer over Easter to give the 2009-10 season a good send off. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Mad Frogs and Englishmen... - 22/3/2010 16:23by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - March 22, 2010 This week-end saw the annual City Ski Championships in Courmayeur where a whole gaggle of City types demonstrated both their ski and après abilities for all they're worth. This was the eleventh year of the event and going against the run of brilliant weather that the organisers have had for the past few years, the conditions were nearly the worst in the event's history
The warm-up races on Friday were held in beautiful Spring conditions but when it came to the day of the big race, the rain and fog descended with a vengeance.The scheduled start time of 10.30am came and went with Ski Sunday's Matt Chilton trying to keep everyone's spirits up by counting the number of gates on the course that were visible from the finish (not many). At the top of the course it was a different matter. Swathes of fog were rolling in and out, the slushy snow would mean huge ruts and the thought of flying down this traditionally very fast course in next to no visibility was leaving the top racers with the sort of nervous smiles you see in every dentist's waiting room. In the end, the race was shortened to just the one run and the fastest man down was Accenture's Peter Bearshaw. There were lots of crashes but thankfully only a few twisted knees and ankles and almost all of the battered racers made it to the traditional prize giving dinner. Prizes were given for lots of different categories, including the lady who won the 'Most Challenged Skier' award by taking almost five times as long to complete the course as the men's winner. At least she was in one piece though. Each of the winners had to run the gauntlet of the French brokers from GFI who insisted that everyone who got a prize had to take a slug of vicious grappa from one of those old ski sticks designed for an on-the-slopes tipple. These boys, who are amongst the best skiers at the event, were dressed as outrageously as usual, this year the theme seemed to be early Spinal Tap. The evening event also involved a charity auction with Damon Hill of Formula One fame, who was raising money for the Halow Charity. On Sunday the weather was just as bad, wet and miserable with the sort of snow that felt like wet chewing gum - a good day for a long lunch! The forecast says that the weather should clear up and give some beautiful spring conditions fairly shortly. The massive amounts of snow Courmayeur has had this season should see us through until the end of April when the lifts close but it would be nice to have another blast of real winter. To finish off here's another entry for 'Dodgy Ski Suit of the Year'. I spotted this Italian gentleman in Zermatt...
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Zermatt special - clearly the wrong side of the border - 11/3/2010 13:14by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder, our Courmayeur snogger, takes a short road trip trip to report on the snow conditions in Zermatt - March 11, 2010 Driving east across the Alps from Courmayeur towards Zermatt last Friday, it was clear that the snow on the French/Swiss side of the Alps was very different to the stuff we've been enjoying all season long in Italy. Whilst Courmayeur has had pretty much non-stop snow since Christmas a combination of infrequent storms and arctic winds has stripped the Swiss mountains bare. From a distance, Zermatt looked white and wintery, once we got up close it was clear that there wasn't much more than a thin veneer of storm-lashed snow left clinging to the mountains, like a Scotsman to his glass of Malt at closing time.
Temperatures of minus 21 degrees (and worse) have closed the high altitude Klein Matterhorn area on a number of occasions this year. On Sunday, the wind-chill from 50km winds took the effective temperature down to the minus 30s. In Zermatt this season, powder has been something you'd only see in the ski films in the bars, the glaciers have been stripped bare with crevasses as wide as you'd normally only find in the summer. The mega-efficient Swissies have of course ensured that the pistes are in tip-top condition and, in fact, most of the resort's runs are open. The off-piste however is some of the worst I've ever seen here. It looks as if an enormous Brillo pad has been used to scrape the mountains clean leaving nothing but ice, rock and a lot of bored mountain guides. The mountain man to call in Zermatt is local guide Andreas Fux. He's been a guide here for 25 years and if anyone knows where there'll be a decent descent, it's him. We skied down the Teodulo glacier with Andreas on Monday, heading onto a thin strip of snow between yawning crevasses at 3,500m, popping out an hour and half later on a frozen riverbed just above the village Zermatt. While it's normal to see large rocks sticking out of the end of a glacier, it was quite a surprise to come across a 1970's era piste-basher entombed in the actual ice. A fatal accident 30 years ago on the Italian border two kilometres away caused this machine to tumble 30 metres into a crevasse, supposedly lost forever. The same machine has now reappeared from its icy resting place having traversed its way in a huge arc under two drag lifts and an entire glacial plateau at the rate of about 65 metres a year. Talk about a clear lesson in the forces of nature.
The lack of snow at the end of the Teodolo glacier route has meant that the local guides have had to construct an aerial gantry on the side of a rock face to make getting out of the final icy gully feasible. Mountains are constantly shifting and changing shape but having to slither along a suspended wooden gantry where you've skied out a year just before shows the rate of change in this particular part of the Alps. Tuesday saw a spectacular early morning heli-ride to the Alphubel Pass at 3700m. Jumping out into the arctic temperatures, we could see the clear blue glacial ice twinkling just centimetres below the light crust of frozen snow we were standing on. After a short, slithery ski through vicious winds, we put our skins on to climb up to the Allinan Pass that we hoped would give us access to a massive descent down towards the resort of Saas Fee. Having skinned for half-an-hour we got to the col only to see thick storm-laden clouds charging up towards from the Saas Valley. A descent through this kind of weather would have meant we'd have had to ski roped up becoming almost blind between hundreds of crevasses to get down to the valley. After a long hard stare into the murky cauldron below us, Andreas recommended that we change plan and head to the town of Tasch 2000m below us in another valley that thankfully was clear of the bad weather.
We might have been able to see the way down on this route but the snow felt like great slabs of breakable polystyrene board. One minute you could stand on it, the next it shattered under you. Andreas thought it was one of the worst descents he'd done in the last 15 years - no mean statement from one of Switzerland's top mountain guides. We eventually made it down to Tasch without managing to make one decent turn in the entire 2000 vertical metres. Thankfully, there was a plate of rösti and a bottle of Dole waiting at the train station buffet to revive our sense of humour. Zermatt is one of the world's great ski resorts and also has some of the best restaurants in the Alps. Places like the Omnia, with its Bond-esque entrance tunnel or the Heimberg with its immaculate alpine chalet-like decoration, will give you as good a meal as you'll get anywhere in Europe. There's something for everyone in this town, whether you're after a classic cheesy fondue or delicacies such as gorgonzola, olive oil and ginger ice cream. We sampled this particular extravaganza one night at the Capri Restaurant on top of the Petit Mont Cervin hotel. This is the sort of place where most of the guests at dinner seemed to have a check sports jacket, a freshly botoxed wife and a holstered BlackBerry slung from a belt as big as Texas. We even tried a highly unusual 'BlackBerry Sorbet' between courses - we weren't quite sure if this was the result of the Chef's imagination or some sort of sponsorship deal. Whilst the snow maybe be on the thin side this year Zermatt, it remains one of the top destinations for just about any type of ski holiday. Even if you do run happen to come across some odd characters in places like 'The Temple of Enjoyment' (as the Capri Restaurant rather foolishly describes itself) it's hard to beat the combination of Europe's most spectacular mountains, skiing for all possible levels and good old-fashioned Swiss efficiency. Click here for our Zermatt resort report. The Town with Too Much Snow - 1/3/2010 09:05by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - March 1, 2010 It's finally happened. After weeks of snowfall, Courmayeur can't take any more. On top of the enormous amounts of snow that's fallen so far this season we've had nearly another metre in town this week. A quick 40cms on Tuesday night was followed swiftly by a further 55cms between Thursday night and Friday.
The snow clearing teams have no longer anywhere to put the tonnes of snow that's covering the town, all the normal spots they cart it off to are full so they're just piling it up as high as they can on street corners. Many of these mounds are now over 4 metres high and starting to look like mini version of the Matterhorn. What's really worrying is that this is just the snow in town - up in the mountains the amount of snow that's falling is getting scary. A number of roads and the whole of Val Ferret, an 18km long valley that's home to Courmayeur's cross-country tracks and some very swish villas, have been closed indefinitely. The overall avalanche risk is set at 4 but in some exposed places I'm sure that it's well over the maximum of 5.
When it's like this, the only sensible thing to do is head for the woods where there are no exposed areas and enjoy the experience of floating through the bottomless powder. Having said that, the temperature rose pretty quickly during the day on Saturday so that the morning's deep, soft icing sugar became the afternoon's Banoffi Pie. If you keep your speed up and have a set of wide skis, you can just about stay on top of even this but loose your balance and you'll be glad of your shovel to dig yourself out of the hole you'll be half buried in. Friday afternoon's storm caught out a group of four Brits who were stumbling around high on the mountain in the midst of the blizzard. The only number they had to call for help was that of the ski shop where they'd rented their kit. Realising the Brits were in trouble, the shop called the Mountain Rescue Services who then spent hours looking for them until it was well after dark. A number of red faces were seen the next morning when the Rescue Team discovered that the skiers had actually made it back to their hotel on Friday night and had decided to keep schtum. In these cases it's customary for a large bill to be presented to the individuals concerned, usually delivered by a moustachioed policeman with a pistol on his hip and the power to make the journey home a lot less enjoyable than the trip out at the start of the holiday... Saturday night brought yet more snow, luckily it was back to the light fluffy variety. This meant Sunday was fabulous, dropping of huge boulders into great pillows of snow that cushion any impact on landing is one of skiing's great joys. The lifts at the bottom of Courmayeur's innumerable off-piste forest runs were filled with steaming locals on the fattest skis they could find all smiling like the cats who'd got the cream. The weatherman says that were due 'nevicate abbondante' from Monday night on, under normal conditions this would mean masses more snow and excitement all round. With what's fallen already, it could mean the snowplough guys will be emigrating to Australia. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. 5,000 euro fines for off-pisters? - 22/2/2010 18:03by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - February 22, 2010
The big story in the Italian Alps over the past couple of weeks has been a panic-lead piece of legislation that the Italian government has tried to rush through Parliament. This amendment to an existing law plans to introduce jail sentences for anyone causing an avalanche that leads to someone else's death and 5,000 euro fines for anyone going off-piste when local conditions are described as "dangerous". These penalties are a knee-jerk reaction to the increased number of avalanche deaths this season caused by a combination of heavy snowfalls and a huge increase in the number of people venturing off-piste. Unfortunately the proposed new laws have had little thought put into them and, as often the case in Italy, politicians have leapt into the fray without having the first idea of the issues involved. Setting an avalanche off over a piste already attracts a potential jail sentence - and so it should. But the question of fining people when off-piste is a completely different situation. The rush to implement these new laws has been halted by a vigorous reaction from Italy's leading climbers, mountain guides and alpine associations, all of whom have condemned them as unworkable and "hysterical". As Arrigo Gallizio, President of Courmayeur's Alpine Guide Bureau pointed out, education is the key to greater safety in the mountains.
Every year new and more sophisticated safety gear is launched onto the market, digital avalanche receivers, airbags to keep you above a snow slide and even rucksacks with under-snow breathing systems. Whilst these technological advances are all welcomed the biggest problem is that many people have simply no idea how to use the kit they've bought. Courmayeur has its own ARVA test area where you can practise locating a buried avalanche transceiver but, as Arrigo Gallizio stated, hardly anyone bothers using it. Given the concerted and voluble response from so many concerned groups the Italian government has now agreed to form a working party with a range of mountain professionals to review whether the sanctions proposed are enforceable or even the correct solution to the problem. It'll be interesting to see the outcome. On a more cheerful note, despite the Italian half-term holiday crowds there were fabulous conditions both on and off-piste on Saturday. Cold, light and dry the powder was a joy to ski and once you got away from the crowds the scenery was breathtaking.
The temperature soon started dropping though and the powder that had warmed up in the strong spring sunshine in the morning was turning crusty by late afternoon. This stuff is hard to ski in and unless you're on some pretty huge powder skis that'll keep you on the surface it feels like trying to wade through an industrial size crème brûlée. The skies were still clear on Sunday but wind that had come up overnight had turned Saturday morning's perfect powder into dangerous slabs about six inches deep that would break and slide from underneath you with just one good sneeze. When it's like this, caution is the key to getting home safe and sound. Luckily Courmayeur offers dozens of fabulous on-mountain bars and restaurants where you can linger as cautiously as you like over a perfect espresso and hot honey grappa or two.. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Endless winter... - 15/2/2010 15:39by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - February 15, 2010
Whilst the Olympic athletes in Whistler are experiencing first-hand the vagaries of the Pacific climate, the Italian Alps have been basking in clear blue skies, freezing temperatures and fabulous snow. As Manuel Osborne-Paradis, Canada's top downhill racer, put it "You put a mountain right beside an ocean and rainforest and you?re going to get a lot of conditions". A few years ago I sat with one of WeLove2Ski's editors in a Canadian heli-ski lodge inland from Whistler for several days, listening to the increasingly desperate 'technical forecasts' while watching the raindrops grow to Amazonian dimensions. We turned to a marathon monopoly session to pass the humidity-soaked hours' I only hope the supplies in the Olympic Village include a few good board games. Courmayeur hasn't had any real fresh snow for around 10 days, although the forecast looks promising from Wednesday onwards. Despite this short break in the regular powder top-ups that we've been having since Christmas, there were still lots and lots of untracked areas to get stuck into. If you're happy to put your skis on your back and walk for half an hour along deserted ridges gazing up at Europe's highest peaks and glaciers, then this is the place to be. Almost without fail the reward is a descent through untouched bowls of thigh-deep powder with not a soul around to disturb the peace and tranquillity. What's half an hour's walk for a run like that?
It's mid-February now and Spring is supposed to be poking it's nose out from behind the stable door. The only sign of anything like milder conditions is the extra daylight and a couple of hours during the day when the temperature gets up above freezing. Courmayeur's mountain terraces are famous for their sun-worshipers. They're normally perched on every available stool and deckchair with the extra large Turkey-foil spread out under their chins - Milan's 'Ladies-who-Lunch-and-Fry' are getting more than a little frustrated this year. Designer ski wear is all very well in winter but once the sun comes out there's a whole range of new Alpine beach-wear ready to be shown off.
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Courmayeur and the Alpine 'Etch-A-Sketch'® - 8/2/2010 11:45by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - February 7, 2010 "Veni, Vidi, Vici" was the cry from Julius Caesar once upon a time. Many people don't realise that the Roman armies never actually managed to conquer Ireland two thousand years ago - and it seems the Italian Rugby Team had much the same sort of trouble when they turned up in Dublin last Saturday.
But what Italy may lack in rugby skill has been more than made up for in the quality of the snow in Courmayeur this weekend. A swift storm came charging through the Aosta Valley on Friday last week leaving almost half a metre of snow in town alone. As Saturday dawned, we could see that the storm had run its course and the skies were opening to leave yet another dose of perfect winter conditions. This year, it feels as if there's a sort of Alpine Jeeves with a snow-filled Etch-a-Sketch® looking after Courmayeur. The tracked-out glades, gullies and glaciers are simply wiped clean of old tracks but the latest storm and re-presented in pristine condition ready for days more fun. Definitely a season to remember.
The pisteurs needed most of Saturday clear the avalanche-prone slopes above the Youla piste so the top Youla and Arp cable-cars, which provide access to much of Courmayeur's off-piste skiing, were closed. For some intrepid souls the snow in the apparently inaccessible (at least via cable-car) off-piste areas was just too good to miss so those same souls put their best foot forward, opened every zip they could find and started the long hard climb through thigh-deep snow up to the distant ridge that would give access to famous Vesses canyons.
Yes it was hard work with heavy powder skis and no climbing skins but the descent into the deserted Vesse valleys was worth every painful step. Dry, light powder as far as you could see and not a breathe of wind to disturb the icy stillness. We came across one of Courmayeur's leading guides who was getting it in the ear from the Gucci-clad wife of one of his client's - she didn't feel that getting to untracked powder when the lifts were shut should involve anything like the amount of perspiration that seemed to be required. Finally arriving back in Zerotta, I met up with Roland Steiger and a bunch of friends from Chamonix who'd come over to escape the brutal weather on the French side. Roland was one of the leading lights of the Chamonix Mountain Rescue Service for 15 years and, along with many of the more discerning Chamonix guides, has a soft-spot for the unique ambience and amazing skiing that Courmayeur offers.
Sunday was even better. The only queue in the entire lift system was for the now open Youla cable-car but no one was just using it to get to the single red run that sweeps gently back down from the top station. Of all the great days I've had in Courmayeur, this was one of the best. Wherever we went the snow was perfect. We skied rock-lined couloirs; wide-open summer pastures; steep, silent forests; and, try as we might, we couldn't exhaust the massive amounts of deep, untracked powder that appeared around every corner. To add to this heady mix of alpine brilliance the sun shone down from a deep blue sky that hadn't a trace of cloud. The sort of day you want to bottle and keep forever. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Bears, powder and a medieval fair - 1/2/2010 13:45by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - February 1, 2010 The morning temperatures on Saturday and Sunday this weekend dropped to around minus 15C, not counting the wind-chill effect of 50kph-70kph winds, so you can imagine the condition of many skier's extremities by the time they'd braved the first few chairlifts. Whilst the bad weather and cloud seemed to be concentrated in Chamonix and over Mont Blanc itself, Courmayeur was bathed in sunshine for most of Saturday and all of Sunday. A little brisk walking provided access to lots of tree-lined descents where the wind hadn't ruined the snow and these provided great fun all day. The Italians have many endearing qualities but the ability to withstand the wind and the cold is not one of them. Needless to say, Courmayeur's many bars did a roaring trade in hot chocolate with a shot or two of the local grappa.
This weekend also saw the 1010th version of the Sant'Orso Festival in Aosta. Yes you read that correctly, this fair of local carpentry, agriculture, music, sculpture and a host of pretty mad, traditional costumes (Bilbo Baggins and rest of the Hobbits would fit right in) has been held for the last thousand and ten years and it never fails to attract what seems to be at least three quarters of the local populace. This festival commemorates an Irish saint who somehow ended up living in Aosta in the 6th century AD - it's a shame a fellow-Irishman's snow reports seem to have vanished in the mists of time. Also tied up with this event is a Ground-Hog Day type tradition where a bear (which rather oddly translates as 'Orso' in Italian) is supposed to pop of his den, see if he casts a shadow and then head back under the duvet for another 40 days of bad weather. Luckily the skies were blue on the day in question so it looks like this fabulous winter will be with us for a while yet. The Sant'Orso fun continues for most of the night in Aosta with all the bars open pretty much until the first chilly rays of the sun appear on Sunday morning. A friend of mine who'd undertaken a thorough investigation of the celebratory refreshments on offer, appeared on Sunday morning with eyes that looked like streaky bacon and a brain doing cartwheels after at least six of those keep-me-awake espressos. In Courmayeur the wind had dropped, the upper cable cars were opening and this was no time for sleeping off the hangover. We headed up to the top of the Arp cable car at nearly 2,800 metres and started out along a windswept ridge that tracks up and over some corniced rocky outcrops, before finally arriving at completely hidden entrance to a long powder filled chute that both the winds and the rest of the local powder skiers had missed completely.
The snow was epic, you couldn't ask for better. It was however only the start of a massive powder-filled run down to Dionne that took in 40° gullies, wide open meadows and more cold dry powder snow than we knew what to do with.
We're set for great weather for the next few days and then more snow of course, ready for the weekend! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Digging the House Out - 24/1/2010 23:42by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - January 24, 2010 There's been no ski-ing this week-end due to the mid-week arrival of a brand new baby in the O'Powder household. However, my spies have been out and about and the reports they've brought back paint a very pretty picture indeed. Whilst many people in the UK and Ireland have had to dig their cars out over the last few weeks, in Courmayeur it's been a case of digging the house out.
A week of almost continuously fine weather has seen the Courmayeur's freeride brigade out in full, heading off to all the famous descents that this year are in perfect condition. Whether you head for the off-piste areas accessible from the main Courmayeur ski area or take the three-stage cable car to the Punta Helbronner lift station, perched precariously at 3,400 metres on the shoulder of Monte Bianco, the snow is excellent. Stepping out from the third of these cable cars you're faced with an almost mind-numbing array of descents. 50° couloirs leading to the infamous Toula Glacier or perhaps the Marbrée extravaganza where, after a climb to the start-point, you thread your way through massive cliff bands, fields of serracs and untouched forests for 2000 vertical metres before arriving exhausted in the deserted stone village of Meyen. All of these routes were in great condition this week but apparently the best snow to be found was on the right-hand flank of the Vallee Blanche. Local Courmayeur guide Gianfranco Sappa took a group of near speechless Swedish chefs down the Vierge descent from Punta Helbronner to the centre of Chamonix, 24kms below. The innumerable turns in perfect knee-deep powder they enjoyed more than made up for the entire week of Muppet Show jokes they'd had to endure in their hotel. The Vierge is a far less travelled version of the Vallée Blanche and is a lot more interesting than the traditional route which at times can feel like the M25, all it takes is a little imagination and of course the sort of local knowledge you get from hiring a mountain guide. This week's forecast suggests more snow so hopefully I'll be able get out from under the mountain of nappies and babygrows that have sprouted Chez O'Powder and report first hand on the latest adventures in Courmayeur. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Strictly Come Powdering - 18/1/2010 16:33by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - January 18, 2010
Courmayeur continues to provide week after week of amazing conditions, a mid week 30cms of snow was topped up on Saturday night with yet another 40cms. The resort is very quiet at this time of year but everyone who can is getting geared up and heading off into the powder. The most switched-on people are hiring one of the local mountain guides both to learn their way around and to improve their technique. It's amazing how much easier it is to ski in powder when someone has shown you why it's as different from piste ski-ing as rugby is to football. After some beautiful mid-week days, the clouds came in on Saturday and produced some of the flattest light I've seen in an ages. We were skiing in the bowls high above the Ivesse couloirs and the only way to judge what was going on in the magical snow under your feet was to use your ski poles as feelers on every turn. Needless to say this technique inevitably resulted in a tumble or two but still, who cares when there's this much snow.
Heading down into the couloir zone we decided to climb out beyond a rocky outcrop and ski one of the lesser known tree-lined chutes that head straight down to the Miage glacier. The snow in some of these protected little valleys has to be seen to be believed, your skis turn with just the power of thought, no effort required whatsoever. To add to the sense of satisfaction we were the first people to reach this area for a week or so and had the entire descent to the three of us - skiing heaven despite the cloud and rapidly incoming storm. Sunday morning saw the clouds that had brought latest 40cms of snow slowly clear and then... the sun came out to give one of those perfect afternoons of knee-deep powder skiing through silent forests which you wish could go on for ever.
The forecast for the next few days, is sun until Wednesday and then, you guessed it, even more snow. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Courmayeur at its best - 11/1/2010 16:39by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - January 11, 2010 Right on cue, when the crowds have all gone, the sun has come out to remind us that Courmayeur lies at the heart of some of the most beautiful mountains in the entire world. The temperatures are low, the snow is crisp and deep, and it's as close to perfection in an alpine town as you're ever likely to get.
Recently I had a look at some old snow and weather reports from the Aosta Valley Avalanche Centre and came across some interesting stats: 1675/76 season - from the October 30 to the end of May no rain or snow fell at all. Just a cursory look at these old records shows that there have been huge variations in the amount of snow that has fallen during the last few hundred years. The 2008/09 winter was considered one of the best for over 15 years, yet so far this season conditions are even better. Snow-wise Courmayeur can now only be described as FULL and it's amazing how quickly one gets used to decent snowfalls two or even three times every week! Many of the locals, some of whom worked 18 hour days during the Christmas and New Year holidays, are now out and enjoying themselves in the fantastic conditions. The pistes are groomed to billiard-table perfection and the off-piste really has to be seen to be believed. I skied the Canale di Dolonne a number of times in the last few days and it's safe to say that if you're looking for fresh powder from 2800m all the way down to 1100m this is the place to head for. This off-piste adventure of 1700 vertical metres (30% longer than anything to be found in Jackson Hole, by the way) starts from the Youla cable-car and a 20-minute sidestepping climb takes you to a windswept col where an entire deserted valley opens below your feet.
A quick check of all the gear and then you're off. The first steep open bowls lead down to tight even steeper chutes. These in turn open up into gentle wide meadows that take you on into forests, waterfalls and finally boulder-strewn river beds from where, if you can avoid a plunge into one of the ice cold streams, you pop out like Alice Through The Looking Glass, onto a beginner's piste that takes you back to the Dolonne village bubble.
There's so much snow that what would normally be obstacles to avoid have become the elements of an amazing powder-filled playground. Despite the general economic doom and gloom, the sales of fat powder skis, ABS backpacks, avalungs and one-piece powder suits (à la Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me) seem to be rocketing. Skiers of all ages seem to be getting kitted out for the Courmayeur powder with a worryingly large number middle-aged Italian lawyers, bankers and Sir Humphreys trying to regain their youth by taking the plunge off-piste. The one thing the shops can't sell however is experience, getting a mountain guide to teach you how to use the kit you've just bought (including the skis themselves) is crucial. Lots of new, enthusiastic powder skiers and boarders resemble a 17-year-old driver who's just thrown away his L-plates and been given the keys to a Porsche - great fun but highly dangerous. I saw one example of this on Saturday near the top of the Dolonne Couloir where an Ali G-esque dude - on a massive set of powder boards and supersized DJ headphones - went flying backwards off a 30ft cliff, despite the urgent screams of his companions below. Hopefully by the time he'd finally reached the end of the run, a good thousand vertical metres below he'll have wished he'd had Mr Bond's Union Jack parachute tucked away in his backpack. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. And yet more snow - 5/1/2010 11:19by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - January 5, 2010
Just to make you green with envy, here is the view today of Val Veny and the Miage glacier which plunges down the southern flank of Mt Blanc. It's the first morning for a couple of weeks when there's been a tolerable temperature, no wind, an almost clear blue sky and of course, yet another 30cms of fresh snow.
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Spaghetti Junction comes to Courmayeur - 3/1/2010 17:00by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - January 3, 2010 Anyone who happened to be in Rome on August 24 in the year 410AD could tell you what it's like to be in a town when its overun by an invading army that tramples all in its path. New Year's week in Courmayeur didn't see much in the way of Visigoths but one could, for once, sympathise with the Romans. No-one I spoke to in town could ever remember seeing as many people crowded into Courmayeur, the car parks were full by 8-30am each day and just about every pavement in site was converted into a make-shift parking spot.
To add to the merriment we've had snow almost continuously since Xmas which, while great for the surrounding mountains, has made conditions in town close to impossibile. To give you an idea, last winter's snowfall was considered the best for 15 years, this year we've already got more by the first week of January than had fallen by mid-February in the 08/09 season. There's more than two metres of packed snow on the mid-level runs and more than three metres on some of the high-level (3,000 metre) off-piste descents. Amazingly, the forecast is now for even more of the same this week.
The ski pistes are in fantastic condition and even after the bashing they've had from the thousands upon thousands of people during the last two weeks, there's not a sign of wear to be seen. The same can't be said for the faces of the pisteurs and rescue services. They've been carting people off the mountain in droves, mainly due to collisions between people skiing far too fast while completely oblivious of the people in front, behind and occasionally above them. The latest madness seems to be skiing (and boarding) while texting. The Italians are past masters at combining a high speed, racing-turn with a heated mobile phone discussion on the quality of last night's risotto (phone clamped inside the helmet) but actually trying to tap out a message whilst avoiding the rest of the populace is clearly certifiable. The off-piste conditions have varied from perfect to dreadful. Some days have seen us floating through the sort of thigh-deep powder that the Americans keep trying to copyright, while other outings have seen us trying to break through the sort of crust you get on an extra thick frozen pizza.
Courmayeur seems to be growing in popularity with the guides and instructors from Chamonix every season. One guide who may not rush back is the gentleman who stopped to relieve himself on a tree near one of the main pistes. I understand he was fairly startled to look up from the business in hand to find a mustachioed Carabiniere waving his summons book in a less than friendly manner. Apparently there's a local bye-law against this sort of thing. One can only hope, given the freezing conditions we've been having, that the policeman allowed the guide to complete his manoeuvres before undertaking the lengthy process involved in dealing with any minor traffic offence here. First prize for ingenuity over the holiday season goes to a butcher in Chamonix who realised that the turkey he planned to deliver to the chalet of a very demanding lady from London was not quite the 6kg she'd stipulated. The chalet lunch - and the butcher's bacon - was saved by the simple trick of sewing 2 extra legs to the bird in question and delivering it with a perfectly straight face! The season can start in earnest now. Once the avalanche risk recedes, Courmayeur will be set for some really superb off-piste ski-ing. Anyone considering a trip out should get cracking and take full advantage of yet another amazing season here on the southern side of Mt Blanc. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Hot air and deep, deep snow - 29/12/2009 11:13by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - December 28, 2009 Here in Italy the snow drought is over and winter is back with a vengeance. After all the hot air that was spouted in Copenhagen recently it looks as if the snow gods have decided to demonstrate that arctic weather is not completely extinct. As Barack, Gordon and Sarko returned home to massive snowfalls, frozen trains and ice-bound airports Courmayeur was getting more than its fair share of winter weather. In the four days leading up to Christmas we had about a metre of snow in town with much more up on the slopes. The powder was great, no one was here and the few lucky visitors made hay whilst the peaceful conditions lasted.
Just as Santa had finished his rounds the crowds from Milan, Turin and Genova descended. Car wheels were spinning, jeeps (sans snow tyres) were sliding into stranded Porches and everyone else was trying to park in the few spaces left by this year's snow clearing team - most of whom seemed to be competing for the Laurel and Hardy efficiency award. The snow on piste is great, the people are not. Thousands of people with new skis, razor sharp edges, dodgy technique and dreams of Olympic Downhill glory are all crashing into one another wherever you look. The police are out in force, issuing fines and carting people off to the local station for marathon sessions of Italian form filling. If the snow wasn't so good most of the locals would be firmly hidden away from this madness.
In between the snowfalls, we had a dose of rain to 2000 metres which then froze leaving a six-inch icy crust that ruined the off-piste. Luckily the snow is now piling down again and it's forecast to do much the same up until New Year. The longer term forecast also suggests lots of snow in the first two weeks of January although, as with the UK Met Office's own 'barbecue summer' predictions, let's wait and see what happens!
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. The Curious Case of Doctor Nose - 20/12/2009 08:42by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - December 19, 2009 Life for the lads in Courmayeur's Carabinieri rarely gets more exciting than the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago they were threatened with a visit to the annual Courmayeur film festival from one of Italy's most notorious and violent gangsters, this week they managed to find 'Dr Nose', one of the FBI's most wanted runaways! First things first however, here's the latest on the snow. The incredibly low temperatures (-18C on one of the chair-lifts on Saturday) have meant that the snow cannons have be going full pelt to provide enough snow to open most of Courmayeur's ski area.
The snow is smooth, compact and great fun in the morning. Once the sun goes down and the temperature drops again, the runs become much harder work and sharp edges are worth their weight in gold. As usual before Christmas, there's no-one here so we've been cruising down deserted pistes, eating in restaurants with just a couple of other tables filled and generally making the most of the lull before the storm. Hopefully the snowstorm that's forecast for most of the coming week will hit before the Milan-Turin-Genoa human storm that will definitely be with us by the 27th. Now back to 'Dr Nose', as he was apparently known in his heyday. A 46-year-old American was found this week huddled in a tent at over 2000m, in the deserted wilds of Val Ferret above Courmayeur. Given the freezing weather we've been having, this is probably the last place on earth you'd want to go camping - he must have felt like one of those Emperor Penguins at the South Pole wondering how they're going to cope with a frozen backside for the next six months.
What the local Italian police initially thought was a madman turned out to be a renowned plastic surgeon who had lived the rock-star life in Chicago before suddenly fleeing the hundreds of malpractice suits (and a $10 million fraud case) that had started piling up against him. Pursued by the FBI (and his wife) across the world for the last five years, he was put down as one of those runaways who'd actually made it. How he ended up in Courmayeur, no-one's quite sure but it appears that he'd lived here for over a year before heading off into the frozen wastes of Val Ferret to see what life's like as a fish finger. The police did play down the fact that he'd actually been in town for so long without being spotted but fair play to them I suppose, they did eventually catch the FBI's man. Reports of another tall, dark, American with a bag full of mangled golf clubs taking up residence in the recently vacated tent are, as yet, unconfirmed. Hopefully next week this blog will be about all the great new snow and powder skiing. Merry Christmas and fingers crossed. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. I'm thinking of changing my name to Paddy O'Piste - 14/12/2009 10:33by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - December 14, 2009. Raw. That's the only way of describing conditions in Courmayeur right now. The hordes that piled into town last week-end have gone and the ski area is ready for the lovely pre-Christmas period when there's no-one around and the conditions are often tip-top. The decorations and Christmas lights are up, too, and Courmayeur looks wonderful. Now all we need is some snow to make it perfect.
Saturday and Sunday saw the few people who ventured out onto the slopes skiing around on rock hard pistes in weather that vascillated between pea soup and the sort of drifting fog you might find out on the Yorkshire moors whilst looking for The Slaughtered Lamb pub. The forests were covered in frozen water vapour which looks pretty but not half as nice as the same branches groaning under the weight of a massive snowfall.
The conditions may sound sketchy but the high quality of the piste preparation meant that the runs were smooth, the snow was grippy and best of all, there were no rocks to cut our ski bases to pieces. One only has to think back a few years to the days when snow making was in its infancy and "open" pistes were sometimes covered in stones and orange sticks warning you of great lumps of granite-hard ground ready to tear you to bits if you slipped up. Off piste is a no-go area. All the Alpine Guides have swapped their mountain outfits for the far slinkier Maestro di Sci jackets and tight pants, cruising around quite happily giving lessons on piste whilst waiting for the weather to change. A quick look at the rack of battered powder skis sitting in the repair shop tells you all you need to know about those brave (or foolhardy) enough to have "given it a go" off-piste. Blown edges and bases that look like someone has fired a machine gun at them tell their own story. On Saturday I climbed over a three metre high steel avalanche barrier behind the Youla cablecar to have a look at one of the main off-piste areas. A friend of mine pointed out that last winter we strolled over the same barrier barely noticing it under the huge amounts of snow. The forecasters are saying that this is the week of the big freeze with a huge Siberian weather system bringing us temperatures down to minus 25C. This is great for the snow cannons but what we really need is a matching disturbance to come in from the west and crash into the cold air giving us feet and feet of fresh snow. Let's see if Christmas comes early. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. The Mad Hatter's ski party - 7/12/2009 12:53by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - December 7, 2009 The opening week-end of most European ski resorts sees nothing more than the locals out and about, a few intrepid foreign visitors and the odd ski instructor whistling down the near deserted pistes offering their prognosis for the coming winter. Italy - and Courmayeur in particular - is different. This week-end was part of the four-day Sant'Ambroggio holiday that sees most of Milan decamp en-masse for a non-stop riot of shopping, dining, posing and the barely-credible chaos that passes for normality in this part if the world. Some of these visitors even manage to get up to the slopes to see how the snow is too. For most of the Autumn, Courmayeur pootles along in its quiet traditional way, the greatest excitement being the annual Cow Wrestling Championships in nearby Aosta (aka the Battle of the Queens). This season-long event culminates in the live, televised final where the finest local animals do battle before 30,000 spectators. The aim is for one of the aspiring Queens to wrestle her opponent to the ground, or at least to cause her to run away to the other side of the ring by sheer force of personality (or maybe bad breath). Imagine a bovine Sumo version of PMQs with locked horns and cowbells instead of order papers and Treasury Statistics and you'll get the idea.
The Courmayeur lifts opened for business on Saturday morning and I have to say that despite the lack of thick snow cover so far this year, the pistes that were open were in great condition. Most of Courmayeur's runs are covered with snow-making equipment which provides a great base for when Mother Nature is a little slow off the mark. The atmosphere was very much 'first day back at school' with everyone noisily greeting their old friends and rivals, eye-ing up other people's fashions and generally making the very few foreign visitors feel somewhat left out.
Saturday afternoon and evening saw the full Milano-on-Snow phenomenon - more flash cars than the Geneva motor show, all parked wherever the mood took the drivers, fur coats by the thousand and more conspicuous consumption than even Imelda Marcos would feel was appropriate. Moncler is the #1 winter fashion brand in northern Italy, 60s style puffy jackets with real-fur Russian hats available for all the family at thousands of euro per outfit. Moncler now has three shops in Courmayeur, the main one actually had a queue of people outside its door. What made this sight even stranger was that almost all the people in the queue were already wearing ...Moncler jackets.
To add to the sense of drama we have Courmayeur's annual week-long 'Noir in Festival' film jamboree. It's dedicated to the latest thrillers (the darker the better) and attracts some notable figures from the international film world. To lend verisimilitude to the event, the author of a new book about the most notorious Italian terrorist of the 1970s invited the main man himself to be present at the launch party. Given that he's currently serving 260 years in prison for murder, terrorism and extortion this caused no small number of eyebrows to be raised. The various local police forces have all been having kittens wondering just who would turn up to see this character, imagining Pulp Fiction-style scenes amidst the ice cream and popcorn. After days of screeching headlines in the local press, the latest news is that the President of Aosta has finally brought his full weight to bear and this notorious bandit will thankfully be staying locked up behind bars. We are, however, expecting Michael Caine to be here for the showing of his latest film Harry Brown. It's ironic that hardly any Italians I've ever met have seen, or even heard of The Italian Job, even more so given that a number of scenes were filmed in the shadow of Mont Blanc itself. Hopefully he'll turn up in a 60s style Mini Cooper telling everyone who'll listen: "My name... is Michael Caine." Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. It's looking good in Courmayeur - 10/11/2009 12:08by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on the snow conditions in Courmayeur - November 10, 2009
Here's a pic from Sunday afternoon showing the south side of Mt Blanc with the Courmayeur ski area in the background. If it keeps going like this the start of the season should be great. The Courmayeur lifts are scheduled to open on the weekend of November 28. The snow at 1700m is about 25cm which is a good enough reason to get the ski touring kit out whilst we're waiting for mechanical assistance! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Seeing the season out in style - 20/4/2009 10:58by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on snow conditions in Courmayeur - April 20, 2009 A couple of phone calls and a whisper that the sky was clearing a few valleys away led to a quick decision to head over to La Thuile, another Italian resort that straddles the French border about 20 minutes away from Courmayeur. The early lifts were freezing and our spring skiing outfits seemed less than wise. The break in the weather above La Thuile looked like it was going to deliver a gorgeous day so we decided to tackle the rocky ridge that forms the right hand shoulder of Mt Valaisan, a 2,900m peak that sits right on the French/Italian border. We were the first to attempt it from the Italian side since the mid-week snowfall and that meant breaking the track for the whole of the hour and a half's ascent. It was hard work as we climbed up through the steep rocky outcrops, sinking into the snow up to our thighs at a few points. The view that greeted us as we crested the final col was however worth all the hard work...
We were perched above a completely untouched, 30°, powder-filled bowl about 500m wide and at least a kilometre long. The snow was dry, light and cold as you'd get in January. Every single turn on the way down threw up a huge cloud of tiny snow crystals that hung in the air flashing and sparkling in the bright sunlight. Later on, relaxing over lunch on the historic Piccolo San Bernard pass (Hannibal actually took his elephants through here in 218 BC en-route to Rome) we gazed up at our three solitary tracks and raised a glass to a fitting end to the season. Fingers crossed for next year!
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Feeling nostalgic - 14/4/2009 19:11by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on snow conditions in Courmayeur - April 14, 2009 This year however most of the sunbathing was taking place in Courmayeur's very own Sunbed Emporium. For many Italians the "pale and interesting look" is a non-starter and simply doesn't go with the new spring fashions - so, given the disappointing weather this weekend, the salon did a roaring trade. Ski-wise much of the weekend was a complete washout with warm, cloudy, drizzly weather lasting until the sun finally came out on Monday morning, providing a glorious day's skiing on the Toula Glacier. The main Chercouit ski area is now only really skiable above 2,200m which is why heading up to 3,300m to tackle the Toula (perfect transformed snow) or the runs back towards the Vallée Blanche (a dusting of fresh powder) makes sense. The Toula was actually very quiet and there is still so much snow that skiing right through to mid-May is a real probability. This is the time of year when you see many of next year's skis being tested, The Salomon team were up filming on the Toula with their new bamboo powder skis. I think the mini-parapentes that some of them were using to fly for 50 to 60 metres over rocks and crevasses between turns will be a very optional extra when these skis hit the shops! This marvellous season officially closes next weekend in Courmayeur, and the picture below shows just one of the fantastic days we had. The ski touring and glacier ski-ing season is now in full swing, but it will be difficult to forget the snow of winter 2008-09.
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Perfect spring snow - 6/4/2009 20:14by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on snow conditions in Courmayeur - April 6, 2009 Last week's falls of heavy, wet snow have led to lots of afternoon snow slides and indeed some larger avalanches in the steep couloirs at lower levels. I took a peak at the famous Ivesse gully on Saturday morning and had to remove my skis and clamber down over armchair-sized blocks of ice that had come down as part of a long avalanche during one of the previous afternoons. Ivesse and a number of other similar routes are now un-skiable until the next dump of snow covers the lot and produces a surface you can ski on. This might seem like wishful thinking but Courmayeur seems to get a number of late dumps every season with the weather turning very cold and the powder skis coming out of the garage once again... Given the slushy conditions most of the weekend visitors seemed to take full advantage of the gorgeous weather and head for a long lunch on one of the many sunny terraces that overlook Monte Bianco.
Sunday brought an entirely different day. A friend of mine suggested we head up the lifts towards the Toula Glacier area and tackle the famous Marbrée descent. This is a steep and exposed off-piste descent that drops from 3,500m all the way down to the valley floor near Courmayeur at 1500m, that?s 2000m vertical, with no signs, no easy traverse out (if you get a touch of the old spaghetti-legs) and next to no people. On the way over to the start of the Marbrée we ran into Dario Brocherel, one of Courmayeur's most famous mountain guides. Over the last 30 years Dario has climbed and skied just about every inch of the Mt Blanc Massif, his career has pretty much set the standards by which all of the other guides in this area measure themselves by.
Picking the right day (and time) to attempt this kind of descent is critical and it was reassuring to see that Dario was up there with his group of clients too. To reach the start you have to hike up for about 15mins from the top of the lifts to reach the very intimidating entrance to the run. Peering over the edge of the first ridge down the 45° crevasse-filled face to the road 2 vertical kilometres below you concentrates the mind wonderfully on exactly what you?re about to do. The snow up here is still cold and dry and from the pic below you can see the sheer quantity that is still around./p> The first turns and traverses take you through the key no-fall zone, concentration needs to be 100% to ensure you stay in control, plan every turn and avoid any slips that could turn into a ride over one of the huge cliff bands that slice through the face.
Once you've made it down the first 500 metres and negotiated the crevasses in the mid section the slope angle levels out to a much more manageable 30°, it was here that the real treat lay - open glacial meadows that offered the space for hundreds and hundreds of turns down a silky surface that seemed more like velvet than snow. The last part of the run brought us through the by now pretty soggy Rochefort forest to the ancient stone village of Meyen - population 0 at this time of year. Eventually we arrived at the summer road that leads back (via a 20 minute walk) to civilisation and a cold beer. The lifts on Courmayeur's main ski area will close on April 19th but that doesn't mean the end of play, the ski touring season is just taking off and the cablecars on the Mt Blanc side are open all year. We often ski well into May and even June here and as Dario Brocherel, and anyone else who really knows these mountains will tell you, some of the best ski-ing is yet to come. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Poncho Days - 30/3/2009 18:16by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on snow conditions in Courmayeur - March 30, 2009 Saturday was one of those days when you leave home in the rain, praying that you'll get out of the cablecar in fresh powder. Fresh it was, but the snow below 1800 metres felt more like knee-deep cold rice pudding. A few brave souls, though very few Italian ones, could be seen doing their best to plough through the goo. Anyone unlucky enough to take a tumble off-piste emerged from the "snow" looking rather like a bag of damp laundry. There's really very little in terms of conventional ski wear that will keep you dry on days like these, and walking into any of the steaming bars or restaurants at lunchtime one could see the complete alpine-sauna effect of steaming gloves, sodden hats and people wishing they'd brought a spare set of underwear.
Sunday saw conditions improve slightly with some of the higher lifts open, although this was only relative. The snow kept pouring down thick, heavy and very wet. There were a few turns to be had off-piste, the fact that it was one of the quietest Sundays of the season meant we could at least charge round the limited options without seeing anyone else - "pea soup" conditions and typical Italian skiers are rarely seen together. Plastic knee-length ponchos are the only protection on days when it's this damp the ideal accessory would perhaps be a set of matching Marigolds as ski gloves (no matter what it says on the label) and wet, sodden snow do not get on well together. The forecast is suggesting more warm, wet weather this week with snow above 1800 metres which means the Poncho may have to see another outing. Let's hope the sun comes out and we get back to some real spring skiing! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. From Catsuits to Couloirs - 24/3/2009 18:05by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports on snow conditions in Courmayeur - March 24, 2009 Whispers abounded of sightings of a tubby Scotsman and his heroically-eyebrowed sidekick charging around in a hot air-powered snowcat ensuring that any bankers who had the gall to leave their desks and take part were wearing medieval hairshirts under their catsuits... As it turned out a hundred world-saving Prme Ministers couldn't have dampened the atmosphere. Past and present stars of the ski world were out in force, the sun shone and a great time was had by all of those who escaped from recession-battered Britain to make it out to Courmayeur.
The week-end wasn't all about catsuits and slalom poles however. This time of year is when the ski-touring kit comes out; skins, lightweight skis and a picnic lunch to be precise. The clear, cold conditions have kept the snow on the north-facing slopes in great condition and if you can "raise your cheek" as the Italians say you can access some amazing powder-filled descents. The pic below shows a group of locals heading off from the Arp cablecar for a trek uphill to a deserted peak.
Slogging uphill on skins sounds like a nightmare to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but try it for an hour, reach an isolated peak and then head down a powder-filled couloir with just your companions and not another soul for miles ? the "slog" seems like a tiny price to pay.
One of the great pleasures at this time of year at the end of the day is too either stay up on (or skin back up to) one of the high points in the area, watch the sun setting and then cruise down trying to concentrate on your turns whilst the enormous glaciers and peaks above you turn golden in the last rays of the sun. We're not even at the end of Mach yet and winter still has a few tricks up its sleeve. This morning (Tuesday) a howling snow storm was blowing in town, a brief pause is forecast on Thursday and Friday before another blast of winter weather is due next weekend ? let?s hope the long johns and thick jumpers have to come out again! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. From spring powder to apocalyptic horsemen - 16/3/2009 19:27by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - March 16, 2009
The days are longer, the sun is warmer and the whole resort seems to be more relaxed now that long cold months have passed. There's still masses of snow (even down to the village) and on Saturday the pistes were in billiard-table condition. The off-piste still had loads to offer with some of the north-facing couloirs providing steep, untracked, powder-filled descents. This is the time of year when the finer side of life in Italy becomes much more apparent. Lunching outside on a wooden terrace in the glorious sunshine, gazing up at the Mt Blanc glaciers hanging thousands of metres above you and tucking into some of the finest pasta imaginable makes you realise just how lucky you are to be in a place like this.
As Sunday dawned clear, crisp and bright the Toula Glacier was the place to head for. This 1,200m off-piste descent provides everything from deep-frozen snowboard tracks to perfectly transformed Spring snow, all you need to do is choose the right line and hope your legs (and lungs) last till you get to the bottom! The Pavillon mountain refuge at the base of the Toula descent is one of the most spectacular in the Alps and thankfully it provides the sort of lunch and sun-terrace that's required after a hard morning amongst the couloirs, crevasses and icefalls. Pavillon was also the setting for one of the most bizzare alpine events. In 1960 a fairly loopy Italian doctor from Milan decided that he and his very own group of fanatics could see the end of the world coming right around the corner. This particularly mad group (even for Italy) took the cablecar up to the restaurant, positioned themselves amongst the diners on the terrace with their arms outstretched and awaited the arrival of the Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As we're all still here it seems the good Doctor was misinformed. One can only imagine the scene at some point later that afternoon as these prophets of doom had to queue up and buy their return tickets for the cablecar all the way back down again... Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Salomon, not seven iron - 23/2/2009 19:00by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - February 23, 2009 In the end just about everybody was disappointed, the golfers would have needed radio beacons to find their balls in the fog and the skiers could have done with wetsuits just to survive the first 20 turns!
The weekend wasn't a complete write-off, however, as Saturday had been another of those fabulous ski days that have been the pattern for this season. Despite the fact that the place was packed for the Italian half-term holidays we still managed to find a few spots that were untouched. The pic above shows the entrance to a couloir near the Miage Glacier - the only tracks visible were those of a lone Chamois who'd been out looking for his lunch. Just at the point when everyone packed up early on Sunday afternoon, sopping wet and dreaming of a hot bath, Sod's Law ensured that the sun came out. It's forecast to stay out of much of the coming week, as well, which will please both the shoppers and skiers who are here in force for the holidays. The Italian golfers on the other hand will have to wait a few more months till the snow clears and they can once more bring out their carefully colour coordinated five-woods and cashmere jumpers. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. "Hey Tonto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." - 16/2/2009 18:17by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - February 16, 2009 It wasn't easy and there were definitely some obstacles along the way. First off was the cold: Saturday morning saw temperatures of around -15C at just 1500m. A Bise wind was blowing too, which dropped the mercury even further and given that we'd had some strong wind since the last snowfall on the previous Tuesday many of the more exposed routes had been cleared of any fresh snow. But all was not lost. The Vesse and Arp Vieille areas still had sections where the shin-deep powder lay untouched by man or wind and all that was required was the obligatory climb, or "bootpack" as the Americans like to call it. Talking of Americans, I came across two Ski Patrollers from Breckenridge, Colorado at the top of the Arp cablecar where many of Courmayeur's longest off-piste routes start. As they stepped out of the ancient lift building they gazed out at the gigantic peaks and glaciers that surrounded them and had what can only be described as a "Hey Tonto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" moment.
In the pic above you can just see the rising track (coming out of the shade) that takes you to the Arp Vieille ridge. Once you've got your breath back and taken in the amazing views, you can opt for one of the half-dozen different routes that take you back to the base of the Miage glacier (snaking down the left side of the pic) and the long skate back to civilization - snowboarders beware. This is one of the best-protected areas in the Val Veny sector and as you can see below the snow was worth the climb. Amazingly there were none of the Chamonix crowds in Courmayeur despite the great conditions. There was a big freeride race over there and I presume that's what kept our now super-frequent visitors on the French side of the hill. The weather seems to be set fair for the next few days but hopefully we'll see more snow towards the end of the week
Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Awesome, Dude! - 9/2/2009 18:59by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - February 9, 2009 The news has finally got out to the Chamonix freeride crowd that, for this year at least, Courmayeur is where the action is happening. Above 2000m we'd had yet another half metre of snow during the week which set the week-end up perfectly. The clouds took a little time to disperse but once they did the combination of sunshine and acres of fresh snow brought out the huge-ski, baggy-suit, full face-helmet crowd in force. The classic routes were all skied out quickly but luckily there are still a good number of descents that aren't that obvious and they remained untouched until the end of the day.
Sunday was entirely different. The lifts up to the famous Toula Glacier had been closed on Saturday due to the bad weather but as the sun came up it looked perfect. Many of the locals gathered to head up to the start point at 3400m and everyone was hoping for an epic day. Hopes were still high as we trekked round to the famous steps amidst the amazing scenery...
What greeted us when we all finally got onto the glacier was snow that resembled freshly poured ready-mix concrete with an industrial strength crème brulee crust - it was practically unskiable. Even the 'Dudes' with their gigantic reverse-camber skis were wallowing around like unseated medieval knights in thigh-deep mud. One descent was enough for everyone, and we were glad to get back to the Pavillon lift station in one piece. The chance of anyone going back up for a second go were about the same as Gordon Brown inviting Jeremy Clarkson round for a quiet drink at Number 10. But the day wasn't a complete write-off, because the overnight wind that had ruined the Toula had pretty much spared the north-facing slopes, back on the Courmayeur side of the valley. It was a case of getting rid of all the glacier gear, saddling-up (as our new visitors would say) and heading out into the powder-filled Val Veny woods for the rest of the day. Bang on cue, just as the place is looking completely skied out, the forecast is predicting another good dump of snow for Tuesday. Whoever booked the weather patterns for this winter certainly had Courmayeur at the top of the priority list. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Back with a bang - 2/2/2009 16:02by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - February 2, 2009 I headed up on Saturday morning with some friends to find the sort of conditions that dream holidays are made of. Clear blue skies, not a breath of wind, more snow than you could shake a forest full of twigs at and, for the first time in a while, a (relatively) warm sun beating down. I'm sure the resort marketing office would bottle days like these if they could. The voices over the steaming cappuccinos were lamenting the fact that anyone looking for fresh tracks should think again - so we did exactly that and decided that a little elbow grease applied in the right direction might produce the required results. Heading out from the top of the Arp cable car we climbed up towards an area known as Arp Vieille (the old meadow) and found the naysayers had been wrong. As you can see from the pic below, there was no shortage of space for anyone looking for those fresh tracks.
If you're prepared to climb a little, push your way out of deserted valleys along snow-covered paths and generally do your bit to have a "grand day out" in the mountains Courmayeur offers infinite ways to enjoy yourself. By Saturday afternoon we were tackling some of the steep couloirs in the Val Veny section, vertiginous descents between rock faces don't seem half as scary if the snow is this dry, light and powdery
By Sunday, it was snowing again and looking like the day was going to be a real pea-souper. Some friends from Chamonix were over, and they couldn't get over how a bit of a snowfall and a touch of cloud had emptied the resort almost completely. Here lies one of the secrets to skiing in Italy. If they can't take their under-chin baking trays out with them many Italians will simply batten down the hatches and head for the relative safety of the Prada store. We had a great day feeling our way around in the fabulously light powder and eventually adjourned for lunch at La Grolla, Courmayeur's most spectacular mountain restaurant. The food here is as good as the view so even on days like this no-one is disappointed. Snow is forecast for much of the week in northwest Italy, so fingers crossed for good weather soon and another yet another set of perfect powder days. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. 1.2m over the weekend - 26/1/2009 08:33by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Lurgy reports - January 26, 2009 Whilst I was away Courmayeur had a huge fall of snow, 1.2m in town between Friday night and Saturday. The skies have cleared today and it looks fabulous. I've now got to go to Manchester and London for work so not much to blog about from there....normal service should be resumed next week-end! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. The view from my sick-bed - 19/1/2009 21:27by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - January 19, 2009 The world's best off-piste skiing? - 12/1/2009 20:11by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - January 11, 2009
As this is heavily glaciated terrain a complete set of alpine kit is advisable: ropes, harnesses, ice screws, belay devices - you name it, they'll all come in handy at some point. The start at 3,400m leads to a brisk uphill sidestep for about 10 minutes. Anything uphill at this altitude gets the blood pumping and by the time you reach the first major obstacle you're warm no matter what the natty thermometer on your backpack says. The obstacle in question is a 25 metre high vertical ice wall which has a single narrow goat path cut into it with just enough room to sideslip diagonally, turn 180 degrees on the spot and shoot down to the infamous iron staircase that leads to the glacier itself. Miss the turn and you'll find yourself slithering at high speed down what looks like the wall of a giant deep freeze.
Whilst negotiating the 100+ Toula Steps (see above, in a picture I took last spring) your attention is drawn, briefly, to the amazing panorama that stretches out in front of you - tracking across from the Grande Motte above Tignes to the Matterhorn in Switzerland, you can see most of the western Alps laid out in front of you. Once down the staircase all that remains is to balance your skis and poles on one shoulder, climb onto a vertical icy step ladder and then gingerly negotiate the last few metres before you can finally get to the snow and step gratefully into your bindings.
Why do it? Well, the chance to sweep down through enormous seracs and gigantic canyon walls making hundreds of turns in gorgeous creamy powder on a perfect sky blue day might have something to do with it. There are dozens of ways of descending the Toula and the other surrounding glaciers: the choice depends on the effects of sun, wind and of course the crevasses that line the route down. There are no pistes, no "marked itineraries" that some resorts have introduced recently to up their freeride-factor, and definitely no time for worrying if you've chosen the right Gucci sunglasses for this season. Having picked a route that combined wide open glacial meadows, steep couloirs between 500 metre high rock pillars and finally a long powder-filled cruise back to the mid-station we did what any sensible pair of Irishmen would do - got back in the cable car and did it all over again. Being Italy, the raw alpine experience of this kind of descent is inevitably followed by an exquisite lunch at the Pavillon mid-station, a perfect alpine restaurant where you?ll find everyone from world famous skiers to spaghetti-legged first timers all marvelling at where they've just been. The world's greatest off-piste skiing? It certainly felt like it last Sunday. Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Not quite enough new snow in Courmayeur - 8/1/2009 07:11by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder updates his most recent reports - January 7, 2009 The new snow has freshened up the pistes and provided an ideal cruising surface. But the off-piste areas, whilst still full of snow, now need a good refill to takes us back to the epic days we had leading up to Christmas." Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Now we've got Russians too - 6/1/2009 02:48by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - January 5, 2009 Courmayeur is becoming increasingly popular with the Moscow crowd although the town doesn't actually need any more visitors at the moment. The 40cms of fresh snow over New year brought out the crowds in force and Jan 2nd saw over 11,000 people head up Courmayeur's lifts - this broke the record that had stood since the 1980's. The other great news is that high-level Arp cablecar has been re-opened after the landslides a couple of weeks ago, providing access to some of Courmayeur's best off-piste routes. There's still loads of untouched powder up here, all that's required is 10 mins uphill effort to reach it.
Heading down one of the long powder-filled couloirs that leads back to the valley floor I came across a Russian couple who looked less than pleased with the way their day was going. Somehow they'd snowploughed themselves down the first part of the run but were now trembling halfway down one of the steepest sections. My friends and I tried them in English, French, Italian and even Latin (one of our group was a right cleverclogs) to no avail. In the end we had to help them over the trickiest section and draw a map for them of the best way down to the hamlet of Dolonne. The Chanel-clad girl sounded grateful (I think) whilst her companion with the extra large arms and even wider forehead looked distinctly worried. I hope for his sake he hadn't been dispatched by some SMERSH-like organisation to take the boss's mistress for a day out on skis... We're forecast even more snow this week which, combined with the exodus of the city-folk back to Milan, Turin and Genova, should mean great conditions later in the week. I did note two new fashion trends recently. Firstly the coolest freeride dudes seem to be leaping off their cliffs in the baggiest one-piece outfits known to man: imagine Nicolas Sarkozy in a boilersuit last worn by Oliver Hardy and you'll get the idea. The second is for the ladies, it seems the latest style from Milan is to adorn your black skin tight leggings with what look like Morris Dancer's knee-tasles (without the bells) - very strange but no doubt very expensive! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Sunny weather at last. - 28/12/2008 19:32by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - December 28, 2008
The temperatures have plunged as the week has gone on with -17C being recorded at 3000m. The wind chill has made it feel a lot colder than that and consequently Courmayeur's many on-slope bars and restaurants have been doing a roaring trade in their trademark extra-thick hot chocolate. At the last count there were 27 watering holes on the mountain with everything from rustic chic to the best self service focaccia sandwiches you can imagine - this is of course Italy! In the late afternoon of Christmas Eve the famous Arp-Dolonne off-piste area was the scene of a series of huge landslides. Starting from one tiny point above this valley a series of jet black 200m gashes can be seen where thousands of tons of rubble have been pouring down. Luckily no-one was in the area at the time and access to that valley has been closed, however something like this does remind you how unpredictable the mountains can be. Away from the now debris-strewn Arp valley the off-piste is in great condition. The avalanche risk has dropped to 2/5 and the snow layers are starting to bond well. Some friends came over from Chamonix yesterday and were amazed to find light, dry untracked powder with hardly a soul around. Courmayeur was fortunate to have a foot of snow on the night of the 25th which was rather like waking up on Boxing Day to a late Christmas present from a delayed uncle. We skied the long Vesse couloirs down to the base of the Miage Glacier. The huge wide meadows at the start give way to some tight, twisting gullies before you finally shoot out across the frozen river and emerge onto the summer road which, with a bit of a push, brings you back to the very welcome restaurants at the base of the Zerotta lifts - perfect. As New Year approaches Courmayeur is filling up with the annual invasion from Milan, Turin and Genova. The town is preparing itself for the busiest days of the year when finding a place to park, let alone a table for dinner, becomes a bit like trying to solve the Rubik's Cube with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back. The town overflows with full-length fur coats, three year-olds clad head to toe in Dolce e Gabanna, and neurotic (armed) traffic wardens trying to keep some semblance of normality. If it snows, and it is forecast for Monday, things will get really tricky! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. A private ski resort - 22/12/2008 20:02by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - December 22, 2008 The lower part of the Aosta Valley had almost twice as much snow as Courmayeur, so much so in fact that a number of the smaller, more remote villages were cut off from the outside world until last Friday. The avalanche risk in the mountains above these hamlets was off the scale and so no-one could get either in or out. After the snow came the Foehn wind which is famous for two reasons. Firstly it blows hard and hot in the alpine valleys, stripping the snow away and every now and again causing the dripping roofs to deposit their enormous loads of snow on innocent passers by. Secondly its said by the old folk to cause madness in some people. Luckily the only sign of madness in Courmayeur this week-end was seen in one of main car parks where about 500 Italian drivers were left to themselves to sort out who was going to park where... You'd have had more luck asking a field full of sheep to line themselves up in alphabetical order.
The off-piste around Courmayeur has been pretty much blown out by the wind so we were left with the near-deserted pistes for entertainment. No-one was disappointed though as they were bashed to almost billiard-table smoothness. You can't help but ski well on this snow. The whole area is in perfect condition and for the next few days will resemble a private ski resort. Amazingly Courmayeur is always this quiet during the week before Christmas and it's worth remembering if you're considering an early-season trip. The metres of snow that we've had are now starting to settle and the freeze/thaw process will form the all important base for the rest of the season. A few more days of good weather are forecast before a cold blast is predicted for the end of the week. Let's hope its brings some dry light snow too! By the way, Milan is having its own dose of Beckham-mania with the famous couple arriving last week with 16 bodyguards, 22 stylists and several pantechnicons of luggage. In the past they were often seen in Courchevel 1850 amongst the minks and diamond studded moonboots, abd I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to see just how trendy they can be amongst Courmayeur?s week-end fashionistas... Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Courmayeur: not dreaming of a white Christmas - 15/12/2008 16:07by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder reports - December 15, 2008 Whilst two of welove2ski's editors have been admiring the world?s highest gondola in Whistler (and counting how many awsomes the locals come out with per minute) the snow continues to fall in Courmayeur. The town is gradually disappearing beneath a crisp, white blanket. We had a medium-sized storm in the middle of last week which added another couple of feet of powder, but this was nothing compared to the tempest that started off slowly on Sunday and only showed its full glory overnight. As I write this (Monday am) there is more snow outside my front door (1350m) than you often see at 3000m at this time of year.
The Youla cablecar opened on Saturday and allowed us to get out into Courmayeur's famous Vesse area, a series of gullies and ridges that drop for 900m down to the Miage glacier on the Valley floor. There are numerous ways down but they shouldn't be tackled without local knowledge of both the routes and conditions. The complete and utter lack of people on the mountain meant that after hundreds of turns in deep fresh powder we were looking forward to the lifts just to rest our weary legs for a few minutes. Sunday started of with a light dusting as the latest the storm came in from the south. Gale-force winds drove the moisture-laden depression up from the Med, it charged through the Aosta Valley and then came to a crashing stop as it ran up against the towering walls of the Mont Blanc massif. The result was a storm that closed many of the lifts and put paid to any high altitude skiing. Even the normal Ski Club race training that takes place every Sunday was abandoned, the junior racers (from 5 years old) could be seen chasing their instructors through the powder-laden woods of Val Veny with faces that were a picture of ecstasy.
The new snow and very high winds have now brought serious avalanche risk to many areas above 1700m. Anyone venturing onto exposed scopes for the next couple of days could quite easily be certified as insane - even some of the actual pistes have been closed as they have windslabs and the unstable conditions normally only found (and avoided) off-piste. However the storms won't last forever and the sun is due to come out from Wednesday, if you can get out don't miss the amazing snow and deserted pistes that will last until the the 27th when the city crowds come pilling in with their mink coats and Maseratis! Click here for our Courmayeur resort report. Courmayeur: the best start for 10 or 15 years - 7/12/2008 22:41by Paddy O'Powder
Paddy O'Powder reports - December 7, 2008 We've been having real winter weather for the past few weeks: better-than-average early snow and the freezing-cold temperatures that help to create the all-important base that the rest of the winter's snow rests upon. Last Thursday, as the weak December sunshine was fading, a huge grey curtain closed firstly around Mt Blanc and then swiftly around Courmayeur. The snow started coming down in bucketfulls and apart from a couple of brief pauses didn't let up till tea-time on Saturday. As I headed up the first Val Veny cablecar on Saturday morning you could taste the excitement in the air. The thick snowflakes obscured just about everything and pretty much the only people about were locals, all eager to head off to their own favourite spots in the woods. The first few turns in thigh deep powder confirmed that this was special. Last year the few pistes that were open for the equivalent weekend were littered with pebbles and the only people off-piste were a bunch of lunatics who wanted to wreck their equipment. This year even the pistes felt like powder runs. As the day went by the snow intensified, filling the tracks and blanketing everyone in white halos. By 2pm the bars and restaurants were littered with soaked but happy skiers and boarders - nothing keeps you dry on days like that, but no-one really seemed to care. Down in town it was a different story. The combination of very heavy snow, a new snow-clearing contractor, a film festival and an Italian bank holiday week-end created chaos. I spotted a glamourpuss visitor to the film festival staring at her canary yellow Beetle stuck in a drift on the side of the main road. She was gingerly holding a pair of snow chains (with instructions).... Luckily the local Carabinieri have an auto-search setting for damsels in distress and swiftly dug her (and her stilettos) out. Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has, between cracking jokes about Obama's suntan and losing a libel case with the Economist, been exorting Italians to "spend spend spend" their way out of the recession. The slice of Italian society in Courmayeur this week-end seemed to have taken him at his word: the shops were packed and the restaurants crammed, we even had to book a table in advance at a bar to be able to have a drink in peace!
Sunday morning dawned bright and blue, Mt Blanc looked like it had had a brand new coat of brilliant white emsulsion and the hordes that had been confined to town on Saturday decided this was what they'd come for. An early start was needed to avoid the worst of the crowds and as some of the upper lifts opened it was clear what lay in store. The upper areas of Courmayeur are now coated in a two metres of snow, so hitting rocks was the last thing to worry about. Staying clear of wind packed slabs was more of an issue, and we carefully picked out routes down into the Canale di Dolonne, a 1000-metre descent down towards town. 500 metres to our left the pistes were swarming with people whilst the Canale was pretty much deserted. We skied it twice - and on the second run discovered that the waterfalls at the exit haven't yet frozen solid. How do I know this? Because I fell off the snowbridge into one of them - a bath-sized pool of the coldest wter you can imagine, with a gushing spout of the epouring down my collar. Luckily I managed to get out of the rock pool, back home and into my second early bath of the day. Thankfully this one was hot. Click here for ourCourmayeurresort report. How to climb out of a crevasse - 9/9/2008 12:35by Paddy O'Powder Ever wondered what to do if one of your party disappears down a bloody great crack in a glacier? Paddy O'Powder (our ace snow blogger from Courmayeur) has. So this summer he signed up for a glacier-rescue training programme.
Everyone who ventures onto a glacier faces the prospect of coming close to a crevasse. They can be huge fissures you can see coming for 200 metres. Or they can be narrow cracks in the ice covered with 20cm of fresh snow. Either way, they can suck you in - or one of the members of your party - and if that happened, would you know what to do? Saying to yourself "I don't need to worry, my guide will sort it", is not much of a cop-out. After all, he or she might be the one who falls in. Readers of my snow blogs for welove2ski last winter will know I like to get out and about on the Mont Blanc Massif, and the issue of glacier rescue has been troubling me for some time. So this year I finally signed up for a one-day course run by the Motagne Sicura (Mountain Safety) Foundation in Courmayeur (www.fondazionemontagnasicura.org). The course was held at 3,300m, at the top of the famous Vallée Blanche off-piste descent between Courmayeur and Chamonix. Three mountain guides acted as instructors, led by Stefano Campese of the Courmayeur Guide Bureau (www.guidecourmayeur.com), and the pupils were a mixed bag of skiers and climbers. We practiced the basic knots, learnt how to build a snow anchor to secure ourselves (and the person who's dropped through the ice) and most importantly of all, how to rig the pulley system that will allow you to pull someone out.
I imagine at this point you'd like to know how that pulley system works. Well, sorry - I'm not going to tell you. There's no substitute for actually going on a course like this - and anyone who's serious about their off-piste skiing or boarding needs to sign up for one next summer (they run in August). I'm glad I did. We all took turns at being both the "victim" and the rescuer - and hanging over the edge of what appears to be an icy mine shaft really focuses the mind on making sure you understand the mechanics of what is going on! To read some of Paddy's snow blogs - and see his amazing pictures - from the awesome season of 2007-8, click here. 'Lunchboxes 'ave landed' - 10/8/2008 21:36by Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder takes part in the annual City Ski Championships in Courmayeur. If you want to get ahead, get a lunchbox. This seems to have been the advice given to a team of Frenchmen who competed in the City Ski Championships this weekend in Courmayeur. This year the Championships were sponsored by Air France and the Gallic theme was more than obvious throughout this now legendary weekend. Every March the cream of the City's skiers gather to do battle on Courmayeur's giant slalom race track. As each year goes by it seems that the standard gets higher and the international appeal of the race grows ever wider. This year's hot-shots included Britain's Alan Baxter, Konrad Bartelski and team members from the current GB squad all racing their hearts out and vying with last year's champion Einar Johansen - an unassuming Norwegian financier with a couple of years' of World Cup ski racing tucked quietly away on his CV. Now back to the Les Bleues, or as they should be more accurately known, 'Les Lunchboxes'. This team, from the French firm GFI, spent most of the weekend in fancy dress and announced their intent by sweeping all before them in Friday's dual slalom event. This was held in blazing sunshine with the music pumping and the incredible backdrop of Mt Blanc dominating the proceedings.
Photo: Photo Factory Courmayeur Saturday was the big race day and again the weather came up trumps. The race track was in perfect condition and whilst most of the top racers stretched menacingly in their lycra catsuits in the start paddock, the French boys arrived in their very own brand of race gear - particularly tight undies, a race bib, some silly glasses and...that was it. There was obviously some in-team rivalry going on as each of the guys seem to have added to their own stature with several pairs of strategically placed socks, I'll leave you to guess where. Someone was unkind enough to point out that Frenchmen have of course been worrying about this sort of thing since the days of Napoleon. The race course was long and fast with the top guys recording times of less than 50 seconds. The rest of us tried just as hard but having not had the advantage of being ski racers for half our lives got down to the bottom about 20 to 30 seconds later. As ever, a very chirpy commentary was provided by Mat Chilton, Britain's top TV commentator for skiing. Luckily most of his comments are impossible to hear as you're flying around the bends on the course - everyone watching gets the full value of his cracks though. The finish area was stocked with loads of food and drink, dispensed by Courmayeur's mountain restaurant impresario, Giacomo Calosi from Maison Vieille. The deckchairs were out, the sun was beating down and a more civilised day's ski racing would be hard to imagine. If you watch out you might just catch the film of the event on Sky and CNBC.
In the end Les Lunchboxes' top racer, Simon Dides, was narrowly beaten into third place in the mere mortals race behind two very swift Accenture guys, Peter Beardshaw and Andrea Gangheri. Sarah Mann from Goldman Sachs headed the ladies race with a sub-58 second time. The stars of the show and the guys who make ski racing it look so incredibly easy were neck-and-neck throughout the race, all of them wanted to beat Einar Johansen who has reigned supreme for the last few City Championships and has caused some famous names to scratch their heads in wonder. The Championships also featured a couple of lesser-known ski stars, namely Damon Hill from the world of Formula 1 and Colin Jackson of athletics fame. Colin somehow managed to snaffle an absurdly expensive pair of skis (euro 2,000+) for the race but had to settle for second place behind a very slick Mr Hill.
In the end Einar held on and won the Super FIS category yet again. I actually overheard a couple of the race marshals exclaiming in shock at the speed that he and the rest of the top racers were flying down the course. They'd been expecting a few leisurely City bankers, perhaps stopping for a Cappuccino halfway down the run! Saturday evening (and Sunday morning) were spent wining, dining and dancing until the legs would dance no more. Some very fragile heads were seen heading back to the City for work on Monday morning, but you can be sure those very same heads were already thinking about next year's race (the 10th Anniversary of the launch of the event) and how to beat Les Lunchboxes. Don't stop 'til you get enough - 21/4/2008 10:55by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy finds the lightest driest powder imaginable at the end of the season. At the end of last year people started talking about La Niña, the South American weather system that seems to play havoc with the northern hemisphere's summers and winters. To the chagrin of the doom and gloom merchants, it looks like the long-term forecasts for a very snowy 2007-08 winter have come to pass and it's not over yet! Courmayeur had some more storms at the beginning of last week that lead to a hefty snowfall and an outing on the famous Toula Glacier. Il Toula is one of the massive glaciers on the southern face of Mont Blanc range that cascade down towards Courmayeur. Three ancient cable-cars take you from the hamlet of La Palud up to the top station at 3400 metres. The first two take about 25 people, the last one a mere seven nervous souls at a time. From here there are no marked runs, comfort stops or piste maps. These famous old lifts take you, your harness and all the required glacier kit to the top where a host of signs remind you that this is seriously high mountain territory. It's immediately clear that whilst a smiling barman will serve you the perfect high-altitude cappuccino before you step out into the wild, once you make that step you are 100 percent responsible for your own descent.
A friend from London joined me for what turned out to be one of the best days of the season: clear blue skies, the lightest driest powder imaginable and two 1000 metre-plus descents that left smiles a mile wide on our faces. We negotiated the infamous Toula Steps, a steep metal staircase that takes you down a sheer face onto the glacier proper, and from there navigated through the crevasses and icefalls that lead to the easier (it's all relative up here) alpine meadows that take you back to the Pavillon lift station. From there we caught the lift back up to Punta Helbronner, headed north towards France and a 15km run down through even more deliciously untracked powder to the ancient Montenvers train that deposits you back in Chamonix, exhausted but elated.
The end of the week brought even more storms and then, right on cue, Saturday turned out to be another of those clear blue-sky days that define what Spring skiing is all about. I was up on Courmayeur's main ski area, making laps of the Plan della Gabba chair-lift with a bunch of friends. None of us minded that the upper lifts were closed due to the high winds, it was enough just to have the most perfect powder and the entire place to ourselves. After several hours of non-stop rides on our own alpine merry-go-round we finally realised that it was actually the middle of April, the snow was definitely getting heavier and that our aching legs deserved a break. At this time of year the recipe for a perfect day is to ski early, ski hard and then gently spend the afternoon with friends, a good bottle of wine and a delicious tiramisu or two! From the ridiculous to the sublime - 14/4/2008 17:10by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy enjoys some magical days in Courmayeur. The last few days have been memorable for the degree of contrast they've brought. I was back in London for a couple of days for work-related meetings and had to endure one with a character who looked as he'd got up in the morning and decided to mix and match Dame Edna's hair with Sir Les Patterson's suit - a combination that had me longing to be back in the mountains even more than usual. The weather whilst I was away was pretty dreadful with high winds, storms and no sign of the spring weather that you would hope to see in April. Luckily it all came right on Saturday with clear blue skies, very few people and a nice dash of fresh powder. Days like these seem magical and, as one of the friends I was skiing with mused at the bottom of yet another deserted, thousand-metre descent: "You couldn't pay for this if you tried".
Sunday brought more of the same. An entire winter playground to enjoy with none of the normal hassles of the peak season. No queues, just long sunny days and fabulous snow. The trick at this time of year is to ski early and lunch late, both from the quality of snow and safety points of view; many of the big slides happen in the late afternoons and it's much nicer to be tucked up beside a delicious Italian lunch than trying to make a call on a rapidly heating up off-piste descent.
Some of Courmayeur's mountain restaurants have decided to call it a day for this season but the famous Maison Vieille is still going strong, basking in the sunshine below Mont Blanc's near-vertical southern face. It's an authentic mountain refuge that has been run by Giacomo Calosi for as long as anyone can remember. How he manages to serve hundreds of meals a day and still have time to stop and chat to just about everybody is still a mystery no-one has been able to solve. So the season goes on, there's enough snow to last well into May and it's only a shame that the main lifts close on April 27. However the Courmayeur cable-cars that access the massive descents on both the French and Italian sides of Mont Blanc, are open and - fingers crossed - will be the source of lots of great skiing yet. Salad Days in Courmayeur. - 8/4/2008 09:05by By Paddy O'Powder Many of the ski enthusiasts that were out sledging and enjoying the snowy weather in Britain last weekend must surely have wondered if there was one last chance to get the skis out again this winter. Courmayeur would certainly fit the bill at the moment as it's caught deliciously between the coming spring with its long sunny days and the winter, which this year seems reluctant to end. The pictures below sum up the situation perfectly. The meadows around town are basking in the April sunshine whilst the deserted snow-filled mountains tower above them, a pretty perfect combination if you ask me! This is the time when the locals can be found carefully picking the chicory leaves that grow naturally in these meadows, restaurants such as La Terrazza, where we had dinner the other night, throw them into a salad with some sliced hard-boiled eggs for the perfect spring antipasto dish. A nearby table of Americans raised more than a few eyebrows by wearing their extraordinary headgear all the way through dinner - some had baseball caps with the peak twisted precisely round over the right ear whilst others seemed to be in imminent danger of suffocation from what appeared to be industrial-sized tea cosies...
Courmayeur had well over half a metre of snow during last week, which meant that yet again both the piste and off-piste were in fantastic condition at the weekend. The combination of dry, light powder and hardly anyone around generally makes for a seriously good day's skiing. Even the high winds that came in on Sunday couldn't ruin the fun. As long as you stayed away from the wind-laden ridges, there were miles and miles of untracked powder to keep everyone happy - it almost felt like our own private ski resort.
The forecast for this week is showing some big storms coming in with snow due between Tuesday and the weekend. Most of the Italians have now headed off for the seaside, in fact I rode one of the chair-lifts on Sunday morning without seeing either another person on the lift or skiing! So roll on the snow, get out the deckchairs for the afternoon siestas in the sun an if you can get ou come and enjoy Courmayeur at its best. For the latest on conditions in the Alps, check out our Snow Overview and weather forecasting maps. The Wacky Races come to Courmayeur. - 1/4/2008 16:39by By Paddy O'Powder Dick Dastardly - sorry, I mean Paddy O'Powder - has just taken part in Courmayeur's very own version of the Wacky Races. Last week-end saw the annual Mont Blanc Freeride Race in Courmayeur - a long gruelling event that bears more than a passing resemblance to the Wacky Races. It was created by Giorgio Passino, a famous extreme skier and well-known mountain guide who wanted the race to reflect Courmayeur's long-standing reputation for hardcore all-mountain skiing. The various time trials took place over Saturday and Sunday departing from the normally deserted Arp cablecar station at the top of Courmayeur's ski area. 75 teams of two raced down the un-prepared mountain routes negotiating rocks, couloirs, high speed traverses and even an icy riverbed on the way to the valley floor. As there were only 4 compulsory gates on each of the 1000m descents there was a lot of room for improvisation and as the teams started at just one minute intervals there was a fair amount of Dick Darstardly-style overtaking going on!
The competitors came mainly from Italy, France and Switzerland with a team of two Irishmen thrown in for good measure - the Gruesome Twosome if you like! The standard of skier was very high with at least half the people taking part being alpine guides, ski instructors or ex-racers all fixing their beady eyes on the 3,000 euros prize. The start of the second time trial on Saturday afternoon was amazing. We all hiked to a windswept mountain ridge, craned our necks to hear the order to start over the long-distance radio and then charged down the first rocky slope in our ski boots ! I'd heard of the old Le Mans start where the drivers ran to their cars but this involved sprinting down a steep dusty gully with your team mate, jumping into your bindings at the first patch of snow and racing off into the middle of nowhere as fast as your legs and lungs would carry you - definitely not the moment for a faff-attack.
The eventual winners of the event were Dennis Trento and Alain Seletto from Cervinia who beat all comers, flying down the various off-piste descents in times that would make your eyes water. A normal trip down one of them would take around 30 minutes for an expert skier - these guys got down in just nine... Being Italy, the event was rounded off with parties, barbecues and lots of good food and wine. I have to say there was also an amazing sense of camaraderie amongst the competitors. Eighty or a hundred years ago ski races were simply a question of how fast you could get down the entire mountain: today many so-called "freeride" competitions are pretty well manicured and closely controlled. It was great this week-end to take part in such a raw alpine event with an incredibly high standard of skier and get some notion of what it must have been like all those years ago. Cold as Christmas! - 25/3/2008 05:41by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder didn't have much time for his Easter Eggs this weekend in Courmayeur. "Anyone who's spent the Easter week-end in the Alps will have realised that winter is still well and truly with us. Temperatures here Courmayeur have been a long way below freezing and the snow has been falling in bucketfulls. Last Friday saw a huge storm that added as much as 120cms of fresh snow at high altitude and a very useful half metre lower down. The usual Easter fare of getting some early runs in before the snow turns to slush in the afternoon was well and truly off the menu this year. After Friday's storm Saturday dawned clear and very cold. Mid-winter was back with a bang and Courmayeur's off-piste descents were in perfect condition. The top cablecars of Youla and Arp weren't yet open but this still left loads of long chutes and tree-runs to attack. Lots of people had come over from Chamonix as the storms had been raging ever harder over there, they got the extra snow but Courmayeur had the sun and skiing!
Sunday saw the opening of the top cablecars and the infinite possibilities from the Arp station. More blue skies, deep powder and a surprising lack of people made it one of the best Easter Sundays I can remember. The numerous untracked couloirs in the Ivesse area were filled with the sort of dry, light powder that banished all thoughts of long lunches. "How fast can we get back to the top?" was the order of the day.
This Easter weekend did see one of the more interesting nights out I've had in a while. A friend of mine who's becoming quite a big cheese in the travel industry was invited with his girlfriend to the re-launch of a bar and restaurant just outside Courmayeur, he asked Mrs O'Powder and I along too. Walking into the restaurant and seeing our table we were all left speechless. The owner of the place (it'll have to remain nameless for the sake of my kneecaps) was sitting there surrounded by several pneumatically enhanced young ladies in micro-outfits - not your average guests at dinner and definitely not there for their conversation! The meal was excellent but our host and his "friends" - imagine Ali G's Italian Uncle with his harem - were something else. By Easter Monday the town had filled up, the roads in town were jammed and the traditional Italian pastime of Freestyle Parking was in full swing. Luckily it only gets like this for a few days a year and more importantly, the rest of the season should be fantastic. There's loads of snow, there'll be few people as many Italians head for the beach once the Easter is over and best of all, that fantastic spring weather is on its way. How Grumpy got his groove back - 12/3/2008 15:37by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder and Grumpy of Méribel have been blasting round Courmayeur. Winter made a welcome return to Courmayeur last week, although the predicted snowfalls really only turned out to be a light dusting. The pictures of Austria and their half a metre of fresh snow certainly confirmed that this winter season is definitely not over yet. This weekend I was joined by a mate from Méribel who has also appeared as a blogger for welove2ski. Grumpy (his nom de blog) has had a pretty testing time work-wise recently, so a good couple of days blasting round the best that Courmayeur has to offer was just what was needed. Before he arrived I picked up my new ABS avalanche rucksack with built-in airbags that explode out of the side of the sack when you pull on a small handle attached to the shoulder strap. I?ve watched as these rucksacks have developed over the last couple of years and listened to comments both for and against. The basic idea is that the airbags increase the space around you if you're unlucky enough to be caught in an avalanche. The air-filled bags help you stay on the surface instead of being buried beneath several tonnes of snow and provide protection around you from rocks and other debris. The guy in the shop demonstrated how my pack would work by getting me to actually pull the handle and watch the airbags inflate either side of me. In less than two seconds the large red bags had exploded out of the sides of the rucksack, scaring the wits out of the couple looking at goggles next to me, but proving how fast the system actually worked. We started early on Saturday morning and headed up to Courmayeur's main ski area. The sudden drop in temperatures and the sprinkling of snow at the end of the week had done wonders for the pistes, they were in near-perfect condition. Blue skies, no queues and the promise of some untracked off-piste had us heading off with some local friends into the huge backcountry area accessible from the Arp and Youla lifts. The new snow was dry, light and very cold. It's a shame there was only about 5cm of it, but still it really felt like we were skiing in March as opposed to April-like conditions we've had recently. After racing around the Arp Vieille and Ivesse routes, a good lunch was called for. Grumpy is an expert on lunch and there was only one place to take him and that was La Grolla. This beautiful chalet is perched high above Val Veny with spectacular views of Mont Blanc and the glaciers that tumble down from its summit. The food is also pretty special and they serve what could be the best ravioli in Italy. La Grolla is very popular with the smart, wealthy Milan-set and true to form they were there, perched out on the terrace topping up their already carefully managed tans. The fashionable colour this Spring is definitely all-white for the girls and black and white for the guys. We sat and watched as tables full of monochrome diners tucked into their lunch, if F. Scott Fitzgerald were ever to come back and write an Italian version The Great Gatsby for 2008 this would be the location and these would be the characters. To complete the look the only car to drive is the new all-white version of the Range Rover Sport (his and hers versions of course). Sunday was an entirely different day. Grumpy and I had planned to head for the Toula glacier, an off-piste descent that drops down from Punta Helbronner at over 3400m via a metal staircase on the side of a cliff and some very large ice falls to the Pavillon mid-station at just under 2200m. As we were riding up in the ancient cable-cars we could see thick cloud quickly enveloping the entire mountain. This is high-mountain terrain and not to be tackled in what was staring to look like a complete white-out. Amazingly, as we emerged at the top station we were above the sea of cloud that covered the whole of Alps to the south, and stepped out blinking into the clear, bright sunshine. In seemed uncanny, but the cloud and fog stopped right at the crest. Time for a change of plan and a run down to Chamonix under those clear blue skies looked just the ticket.
We headed out from cable-car station and ran straight into a group from one of Italian ski clubs who looked like they were preparing for a high-altitude version of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party - complete chaos. We skipped past this group and their very harassed guides and headed off down a variant of the famous Vallée Blanche called La Vierge. This is somewhat steeper and more crevasse-ridden than the normal route but is much quieter and provided some fantastic snow and amazing views. The picture above shows the sheer scale of the mountains and the breathtaking scenery you're in the midst of on this descent. The Vierge route joins up with the end of the classic Vallée Blanche run and takes you back to the Montenvers train station and the scenic ride on the cog railway back down to Chamonix. Overall, I think Grumpy returned to his part of the Alps well refreshed, the ABS pack was certainly heavier than a normal one, but is well designed and worth the extra effort and last but not least, Winter is back! As I write now the snow is coming down properly and it definitely looks like the snow shovel will be needed to get the car out tomorrow. Handbags, Gladrags and Sausage Dogs - 5/3/2008 10:10by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy goes to a fashion show and everyone else is sunbathing in Courmayeur. The weekend in Courmayeur was full of weird weather, odd sites and an interesting event. Friday night brought some rain showers with the zero degree level up over 3000m, this was swiftly followed by some very high winds on Saturday morning, which closed almost all of Courmayeur's lifts and left a great many people shopping and enjoying the restaurants in town. We've been lucky this season that high winds have been a rarity, so one bad Saturday shouldn't really be cause for complaint. Saturday wasn't a complete wash-out as I'd been invited to the launch of a fashion show by a local clothing company called Valgrisa. This firm was started about three years ago with the aim of reprising the traditional alpine clothing worn by mountaineers and guides in the Aosta Valley. I'd often noticed in old photos of the early alpinists that clothes they wore for their adventures were particularly well made and actually very stylish. Valgrisa goes to great lengths to use both traditional materials and the original production methods to make their clothes. They're not cheap but are beautifully made and very well cut. Saturday saw the launch of the Carrel Jacket, named after Jean-Antoine Carrel, the famous Cervinia guide who was narrowly beaten in July 1865 to the first ascent of the Matterhorn by Britain's own Edward Whymper. The evening was a great success and there was an interesting discussion on why the British were so strong amongst the early climbers. In the mid-1800s it was apparently taken as gospel that it was impossible for women to climb to higher than 3000m - a sort of ice ceiling I suppose. Sunday dawned clear and bright but very, very warm. The crowds were also out in force and, as the snow soon turned to the consistency of soggy porridge, most people headed for the mountain restaurants to soak up the sun. The Italians simply love lying around in any beach-like environment even if it's halfway up a mountain. No-one is the least bit embarrassed about strolling through the snow in flip-flops, summer trousers and matching sausage dog! All the signs seem to be right for a serious change in the weather this week with very cold temperatures and lots of snow forecast. It's only the beginning of March and the season here usually runs well into mid-May, so let's hope the weather gets itself sorted out and we can get back to real reason we all love skiing. Even hit-men need a holiday - 20/2/2008 08:57by Paddy O'Powder Paddy is back in Courmayeur and ready to see what's on offer snow-wise. There's been no fresh snowfall for almost two weeks and there's a big block of high pressure sitting over the Alps giving cold nights, clear glorious days but not much in the way of fresh powder. However, Courmayeur is one of those places where the correct application of a little elbow grease can result in some fantastic rewards. Heading out from the Arp cable-car at the top of the lift system, I decided to check out the famous Arp Vieille descent that involves a couple of diagonal, uphill climbs - nothing ridiculous, but enough to put off the less than eager. On the first of these I ran into was quite an unusual couple, dressed from head to toe in early-80s outfits, and tottering along on long, thin skis. These two Italian guys looked they'd just stepped off the set of The Sopranos. One was a massive hulk with hardly any space between his eyebrows and hairline, whilst the other was comically short and almost completely spherical. They were staring at the piste map that shows some of Courmayeur's off-piste routes and arguing in heavy Sicilian accents about the right way down. They stopped me and demanded to know how they could get down to Dolonne (1500m below) without having to ski too much. Having looked at their gear and assuming they were somewhere they shouldn't be, I suggested the best way was to climb back up to the cable-car (about a 20-minute walk) and head down that way. This wasn't popular. Gigi (the ping pong ball) started to scream anatomical abuse at Salvatore (the hulk in 1980s fuscia and yellow), telling him exactly what he could do with both his map-reading and his ski poles. I tried to keep a straight face, deciding that asking them for a photo for my blog would probably have left me in need of rescue myself, and scarpered asap. The only thing they seemed to be missing was their violin cases.
Having finally got to the highest point of the uphill trek, we could see that the climb had been worth it. Not just the fabulous views of Mont Blanc and the glaciers, but a series of huge, hardly-touched bowls filled with what appeared to be the last powder for miles. A couple of hundred giddy turns later we stopped, looked back at our tracks and thought yes, that was definitely worth both the climb and the run-in with the Sicilians. Another lap through the lift system brought us to the Vesse couloirs, a whole series of steep and not so steep chutes that head straight to the foot of the Miage glacier. The snow in these was well-packed with just a little light stuff on top, perfect for tackling one of the steeper ones. The one we chose was fairly tight but in great condition, the exit into the famous river bed run to the valley floor was as smooth as any piste, so Courmayeur had worked its magic again. One of the busiest weekends of the year, due to the school holidays, but untracked powder and deserted valleys freely available, all for the price of a few hundred metres uphill. The forecast shows a weather front moving in towards the middle of the week, so fingers crossed well get something in time for next weekend. For more on Courmayeur, read our resort report!. Great conditions off-piste in Courmayeur - 31/1/2008 09:41by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy reports that Courmayeur feels like it's taking a breather at the moment. The big snowfalls of about 10 days ago have left their mark, but the sun has come out and suddenly it feels like Spring. Clear blue skies, crisp mornings and the promise of warm sunshine at lunch tend to lead to thoughts of ski-touring, although the start of the touring season is a good month and a half away. Saturday morning was a good opportunity to dust off the skins and get the legs used to walking uphill again. The sliding step used when going uphill on skis always feels a little awkward at first, but then the rhythm sets in and all you have to do is enjoy the spectacular panoramic views as you head up into the mountains. Mrs O'Powder and I set off from the village of Entreves up a snow-covered summer road in Val Veny with nothing but the sound of the swish of the skins on the snow, the gentle clack of the bindings with each step and the promise of a good lunch in the refuge we were heading to.... paradise. The Rifugio Monte Bianco we went to is actually just off the piste. Conditions on piste are very good at the moment. The enormous quantities of snow that have fallen this season really give the rat track teams something to work with. The result at the start of each day is perfectly smooth corduroy to ski on with no ice, no bumps and during the week, no crowds whatsoever. Sunday morning was a good opportunity to see if there was any powder left on some of the high-level descents. Heading up to the Arp cable-car and emerging at 2700m it was clear that with a little planning there was plenty to go. The picture below shows the now abandoned Arp ski area, where you can see what's left of the old lifts in the centre.
Heading down the Vesses run to the valley floor we found huge swathes of light untouched powder that lead eventually into the tight ravine that leads to the Miage glacier. This area was the scene of a major avalanche a few weeks ago, which thankfully now is completely covered with new snow. It's a bit like skiing down a mile-long half-pipe, swinging up and down the banks until you eventually pop out onto the long push back to the Zertotta lifts. The high pressure over the Alps should ensure these conditions last for a few more days before the next set of weather arrives and hopefully we'll be back into winter with a vengeance. For more on Courmayeur, read our resort report!. Almost too much powder in Courmayeur - 21/1/2008 18:50by By Paddy O'Powder Paddy O'Powder has been doing some race training before the Mürren Inferno. Courmayeur had yet another huge fall of snow last Tuesday and Wednesday with at least 50cm in the village and a metre on the mountain. The group of friends I go off with every year to Mürren turned up in Courmayeur on Wednesday night for our traditional 'Inferno training session'. This year we hit the powder as hard as possible and to there was almost too much of it. The upper cable-cars and chair-lifts in Courmayeur were closed whilst the surrounding peaks were avalanche-blasted, so we stayed in the Val Veny trees trying to find the steepest chutes possible simply to get any momentum at all - the snow was that deep. Having skied all morning we repaired to La Grolla for a fantastic lunch before a few more turns in the powder and the departure for Murren.  To read about out Paddy O'Powder's weekend at the Inferno race in Mürren, click here. For more on Courmayeur, read our resort report!. The Courmayeur blog - 14/1/2008 12:48by By Paddy O'Powder It's just one of those seasons in Courmayeur. It seems that every weekend there is a big fall of snow that produces fantastic powder conditions - OK the sudden rain and high temperatures last weekend weren't up to much, but apart from that its been as regular as clockwork. The rain of a week ago had produced some very tricky conditions during the week as the temperatures dropped and the rain-sodden snow started to freeze solid. On Saturday morning it started snowing early and just got heavier as the day went on. This being the first weekend after the Christmas and New Year holidays it meant that there was hardly anyone on the mountain. The bad weather also kept most of the fair-weather slinky-suit brigade away too - far to cold for posing and quite frankly no-one was stopping long enough to notice. As the morning went on the snow fell faster, the powder got deeper and the smiles amongst the lucky few got wider. The picture below is of Massimo Datrino (mdatrino@hotmail.com), a mountain guide friend of mine having another tough day in the office.
The off-piste runs behind the Youla cable-car were in great condition, deep fresh snow over a solid base that just meant turn after turn of pure pleasure. I'd taken up a pair of long and very wide Salomon skis with a swallow-tail. They floated perfectly but I'm not sure that the split in the tail actually achieves much beyond causing a few odd looks in the lift queue. As the snow fell even faster, the group of friends I was with headed into the trees and sped through the innumerable gullies that the Val Veny woods offer. Heading below about 1800m was a mistake though, as the frozen crust left over from the rain storm a week ago made turns very tricky. Even the 20 to 30cms of new snow on top couldn't hide the frozen-porridge-like surface underneath, so the face masks and bandanas came out and we headed back up into the blizzard. The forecast for Sunday was for the sky to clear and the sun to come out. The big debate in town on Saturday night was whether to head for the famous Toula glacier on the side of Mont Blanc and tackle the metre or more of snow that would have fallen there, or to go for some of the longer, classic runs accessible from the main Courmayeur ski area. My friends and I decided the latter was the best bet and ended up having an epic day. The first run was from the top of the Arp cable-car at the top of the Courmayeur lift system. In an earlier blog I mentioned this rather strange old contraption that resembles 'the cable-car that time forgot', it does however provide access to some unbelievable ski terrain. We headed left from the station and headed down through miles and miles of untracked powder, in total a 1500m vertical drop down to the ancient hamlet of Dolonne. A race back up the gondolas got us back up to the base of the Arp lift only to find it was lunchtime and as the lifty's spaghetti was just about cooked, the cable-car was going nowhere for an hour or so. Not to be put off, we headed off down the long descent to the valley floor on the Mt Blanc side - known as the Vesses. The wide open snowfields we'd been skiing the day before lead into a series of steep, narrow gullies that plunge down to meet the end of the Miage glacier, a massive ice fall that reaches from the valley floor to almost summit of Mont Blanc. We knew there'd been a very large avalanche earlier on the week caused by the rain, wind and exposed ridges near the entrance to the Vesses run, so we stuck for as long as we could on the right-hand ridge of the main gulley. Eventually we had to leave the soft, light powder in the tress and enter into the main gulley and negotiate the lower part of the avalanche debris. Huge, solid blocks of ice are no fun to ski on, but eventually we got clear of it, crossed the stream at the base and headed back to civilization. This involved following a summer road for a couple of kms and then poling along the flat for a further 2km. As you can imagine, a quick refuelling stop was just about the only thing on our minds when we finally got there.
It's amazing what a good sandwich and a drink can do in the right conditions and within half an hour we were ready for the off. The morning's Arp-Dolonne descent was still fresh in our minds so we headed back up to the top of the Arp lift, which was back in business for the afternoon session, and we had yet another vertical kilometre and half of fresh powder all the way back into town. All in all we skied about 4300m vertical of fresh powder and about 200m of awful avalanche debris. Nobody seemed to be complaining at the end of the day. What happened to the snow? - 9/1/2008 15:42by By Paddy O'Powder What a weird weekend the Alps has had! Our man in Courmayeur, Paddy O'Powder, thought they were getting the storm of the season on Saturday. But then Sunday morning dawned... So Christmas and New Year are over in Courmayeur. I managed to miss the chaos of New Year and spend a few relaxing days at home in the west of Ireland, far from the madding crowds. Traditionally the first week-end in January is the last hurrah of the Italian holidays and this time the New Year got off to a pretty extreme start weather-wise. Last Friday (Jan 4th) was cold, cloudy and full of powder. The Youla cablecar was open and the vast open bowls and chutes that lead down to the valley floor at the base of Mont Blanc were almost untracked. The high winds of the holidays had left the initial traverse a little rocky but a few careful steps led to some fantastic powder. It's often the case in Courmayeur that you can be ski-ing powder only a few hundred yards from the packed pistes and not see a soul. By the end of the afternoon the storm clouds were gathering and the incoming weather front looked like it was limbering up for an all-out storm with five-part harmony and full orchestration.
We weren't disappointed. From Saturday lunchtime onwards, the snow pounded down, dry and almost impossibly light. The storm conditions managed to see off the last of the city crowds and the afternoon was spent cruising through the powder which seemed to be coming down faster as each hour went by. By Saturday evening there was a good 50cms of snow in the village and no sign of the storm abating. this looked like one of those snowfalls you read about in Alaska that lasts for days. The weather can often be completely different from one side of Mont Blanc to the other, and a quick trip through to Chamonix on Saturday night showed that whilst Courmayeur was quickly disappearing under the white stuff, the French side of the mountain resembled the inside of a car wash - warm, wet and not the ideal place for a stroll. Having picked up a mate who'd dashed out from London for the Courmayeur powder we headed back into Italy to find more snow than I've seen here for a good few years. It was simply staggering. Despite the fact that it was almost midnight Mrs O'Powder managed to convince me that a late-night sledging session was what was called for. So armed with out trusty old wooden "Davos" sledge we headed out onto the silent, snow-covered roads and did just that - great fun. Sunday dawned - and what a difference! The dry, light perfect powder had turned to the wettest, heaviest sludge imaginable. The lifts were all closed, the car parks were jammed and all the people who'd awoken early and come over from Chamonix just had to sit and order yet another coffee. Eventually some of the lower lifts did open and we all tried bravely to "ski" the wet cement. The sun did eventually come out briefly to show the snow-covered Italian side of Mont Blanc but on a day like today there was only one solution - a good lunch. The Grolla restaurant in Val Veny is one of the best on the mountain and has fantastic panoramic views from almost every table. The food is fabulous and given the company (and the wine list) the afternoon didn't turn out to be that bad after all. The forecast is for more bad weather on and off over the next week but thankfully getting colder. So fingers crossed that the perfect base we now have for the rest of the season will be topped up with lashings more of the dry, light snow that sadly vanished so fast. For more on Courmayeur, check out our resort report. Christmas week in Courmayeur - 27/12/2007 17:05by By Paddy O'Powder The Christmas season in Courmayeur has so far been dominated by great weather, low temperatures and empty slopes. The fantastic snowfalls we had a couple of weeks ago are still providing excellent skiing with (so far) no queues to hold up the fun. Last weekend was spent burning around on perfectly prepared pistes enjoying the open spaces and making the most of the now slick surface on most runs. The days (and in this year's case, weekend) before Christmas are often some of the quietest of the holiday season with many of the Milan, Turin and Genoa crowd staying away to do the last rounds of Christmas shopping before descending on Courmayeur from the end of December.
One of the great attractions of Courmayeur is that the powder lasts for days and even weeks - longer than in Chamonix where the sheer number of freeriders tends to turn many off-piste routes into mogul-fields very quickly. I headed out with some friends on Monday to tackle an off-piste route called the Canale di Dolonne. There are a few ways to get to this particular descent and in the hope of some still fresh, cold powder we went for the option that involves a long traverse from the top of the Youla cable-car followed by a steep climb. The first part involved sidestepping up through some pretty crusty windblown powder, when the snow ran out it was a case of skis off and a scramble up some icy shale. The last section of this was fairly delicate although using touring boots with vibram soles meant that we avoided that awful feeling of perpendicular skating that climbing in normal smooth-soled ski boots produces. There's nothing like a good uphill climb carrying your skis to get the blood going on a cold winter's morning and by the time we reached the crest we were all definitely glowing. Looking down from the windblown crest at 2600m we could see that the climb had been worth it. The huge bowl below us was barely tracked and the snow, even after two weeks, still looked dry, cold and light. After a few shuffles to get over the initial rocks we were off and into the first section. A couple of dozen turns and a traverse right brought us to the key section where two tight, steep couloirs awaited us - amazingly both were untracked and filled with the sort of snow we'd been looking for - deep, crisp and even. The exits from these rocky chutes bring you into a huge wide bowl with a series of ridges that are just perfect for long sweeping turns. The Canale di Dolonne gets its name from the fact that you can ski down all the way to the ancient hamlet of Dolonne. Today was not the day however, as the exit down to the village involves a tight scramble along a frozen riverbed filled with gigantic ice-clad boulders. The snow just isn't there yet so we once more started uphill to get back to a hidden track that very conveniently takes you back to the main Courmayeur ski area and of course a proper Italian lunch. It's very difficult to eat badly here, whether you're after a smart mountain chalet such as La Grolla in Val Veny or an authentic refuge like Maison Vieille, there's no end of choice. And so the madness of New Year beckons, Courmayeur turns into a heaving, overstretched and basically tricky place to ski as the crowds pour in from Milan, Turin and Genoa. The lift system and town infrastructure are improving but they still creak during the New Year rush - if you're thinking of heading out to sample everything from the freeride to the fettucini, leave it until the crowds have gone and you'll enjoy it all the more. Entering another world - 18/12/2007 11:19by By Paddy O'Powder Our man in Courmayeur finds that winter is now in full swing. After the huge snowfalls of last weekend we've had nothing but clear blue skies and very low temperatures all week. Many of the high glacier runs from Punta Helbroner, such as the Toula and Marbret descents are now tracked - and its still only mid December. These runs are serious alpine stuff - abseiling into chutes, steep 'absolutely no falling here' sections and big, deep crevasses. Often these runs are unskiable until mid-January so this year is definitely exceptional. Sod's Law kicked in on Saturday morning however and looking up from town the mountains seemed to be swathed in dense freezing fog. Still worth a go though, so on the with the gear and an extra jumper. Up on the Checouit ski area above town it was like skiing around in a bowl of pea soup, I bumped into an old friend who was out trying to film a race and some interviews for Ski Sunday - not easy to even see the end of the camera on a day like this.
Suddenly the top cable-car to Youla opened and the day changed completely. Literally 100m above the start of the cable-car the sun broke through and we realised that there was a massive temperature inversion, the freezing fog and clouds were all trapped in the valley along with most of the weekend visitors! So the powder beckoned and yet another day of dry, light and very cold snow was ready for the taking. By lunchtime the cloud had burnt off completely and you could see all the way down to the valley floor. The Cresta d'Arp cable-car that goes up to 2755m had also opened and so beckoned the first trip down one of Courmayeur's most famous off-piste descents. The Arp-Dolonne run is a 1500m descent through steep chutes, miles of wide open meadows and finally a tight, twisty exit through a forest. Like many of Courmayeur's off-piste descents, once you start there's no turning back or shortcuts back to the pistes. The baked-bean can of a cable-car that goes up to Cresta d'Arp is quite something. It was built and installed in the mid-1960s and has hardly changed since. There's space for six people, the lifty at the bottom locks you in with one key and his mate at the top lets you out with another. It looks just like the lift to Blofelt's mountain-top laboratory in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Its only a short ride but once you arrive you enter another world. The top station itself is pretty large with several levels that used to be filled with bars and restaurants - in fact Courmayeur used to have an entire ski area up on this part of the mountain. It was abandoned years ago and all that remains are the spooky empty hallways and stairways leading to shuttered dining rooms where skiers from another generation raved about the latest Lamborghini skis - only available in Italy I believe and yes they were very fast. The signs on the way out announce that there aren't any pistes up here, the image of someone falling off a cliff makes it doubly clear. The descent to Dolonne was fantastic, the acres of wide-open meadows in the mid section were perfect for massive sweeping high speed turns. Simply cruising from one perfectly-pitched roll to another and not a soul about to get in the way. Once down into the woods we came across a beautifully isolated mountain chalet (or baita as they're known locally) with views that would cause even the most insistent chatterbox to fall silent. The last stage through the woods is tight and no place for big planks but our team of three skiers and a snowboarder all got through somehow. The run finishes in the ancient hamlet of Dolonne across the river from Courmayeur. We strolled back to the new bubble along the narrow, deserted stone streets between 500-hundred-year-old houses whose eaves practically touch. Gazing up between the roofs you can just catch glimpses of the jagged 4000m peaks that dominate the skyline above this whole area. So all in all not a bad day, powder in the trees in the morning a delicious plate of home-made lasagne at the Chateau Branlant for lunch and then a 1500m off-piste descent without seeing one person the whole way down. Back in town it seems that most people are still piching themselves and saying: "Is it still only mid-December?" Magic in the Mont Blanc massif. - 10/12/2007 14:09by By Paddy O'Powder Our man in Courmayeur has been gorging himself on the mountain all weekend, the b*stard. All we can do is read his sickening description of powder heaven and try to smile. Norah Jones once sang 'As I sit and watch, the snow fall down'. It was a great opening line to one of the soppiest albums of all time and right now it describes Courmayeur to perfection. The only difference being that there isn't much in the way of sitting going on.
Last Friday's torrential rain was followed during the night by a good foot of the kind of light fluffy powder that forces you out of bed at first light. Saturday dawned fresh, crisp and very snowy with the big crowds from Milan already in town and itching to hit the slopes. As often happens in Italy there was a mad panic to get the lifts going as both the main cable-car from town and the new bubble from Dolonne were suffering from the 'wrong kind of snow' syndrome and going nowhere. The crowds were building up, tempers were fraying and hundreds of Italian arms were waving like a bowl of spaghetti that had just sprung into life. The noise and heat must have had the desired effect on frozen cables and suddenly we were off. By 11am the skies had cleared and the promise of the first great day's skiing of the season was fulfilled. Powering through the trees in light knee-deep powder was fantastic and Mont Blanc looked like it had been blasted by a thousand snow cannons. The Italian side of the mountain towers over much of the ski area and has a very different aspect from the Chamonix side. It has often been described as Himalayan and looking up at the jagged buttresses and blue-white glaciers that flow for miles it's easy to see why. Q. What more could anyone want? A. Well even more snow would be nice. By the critically important aperitivo time (7.30pm) on Saturday evening the snow was pounding down and the full-length mink coats and matching hats were out in force. It looked as if hordes of terribly chic Wombles in high-heels and gold moon boots had invaded the town. The singles were also out in force eyeing up this season's possibilities and desperately trying to avoid last year's calamities. There was such a clamour for tables at the end of the aperitivo hour that restaurants could have rented out space on their wine racks.
Sunday brought masses more snow and, as many Italians turn tail and head for home when a big storm hits, the mountain was deserted. The snow was coming down hard enough to completely cover our tracks on each lap of the Val Veny woods, it was cold and it felt like a quiet Tuesday afternoon - perfect. When the wind came up we headed down to the Zerotta area and found even more untouched powder lying soft, deep and undisturbed. Down in town it was a different story with Courmayeur's roads hosting the local version of the Wacky Races. Every time it snows at a weekend there are cars pointing up, down and in every direction but straight. High-powered jeeps tangoed with the latest low-slung sports cars and the locals were out in force to see the road show. You could almost sell tickets. One thing I will say about the Italians is that I've never seen the kind of road rage you get in the UK. They shout, do a Kermit-like arm waving routine and then just get on with it - no abuse, no black eyes, just a shrug and they're off. So the big Sant'Ambrogio weekend is done and there's even more snow forecast for the rest of the week. The place will be almost deserted between now and late December when the next instalment of the Italian holiday season comes to town. I know there's snow almost everywhere in the Alps right now, but anyone coming to Courmayeur this week is definitely in for a treat. To find out more about Courmayeur, check out our Courmayeur resort report. Current from Courmayeur - 3/12/2007 15:12by By Paddy O'Powder (via the editors) From Courmayeur, long-time resident Paddy O'Powder has sent us this report. Paddy has lived in Courmayeur since 1996 and is married to the daughter of one of the town's oldest families. He has a 'real' job during the week but his addiction to powder calls him out on to the mountain every Saturday and Sunday. He promises his regular blog will be about Courmayeur, the people, the skiing, the food, and of course the idiosyncrasies of life in an Italian ski resort.
It's snowing! Despite having lived in Courmayeur on the Italian side of Mont Blanc for over 11 years there's always a real frisson as a new winter kicks off - that child-like feeling of almost wanting to go to bed in your ski clothes the night before, just to make sure there's no way you waste any of that precious first day. Saturday morning found me and the sun both out early. The slopes above town look white - and hardly anyone was around. Up on the cable-car out of town and across to the new bubble that goes up to Col Chercouit (the highest point open). The main red-run back down under the bubble had some snow. However, it looks like the rat-track guys have been playing an alpine version of Twister with their new machines, rather than preparing anything piste-like. Dark rumours of the snow-making systems not being quite ready and 'anyway it's better on the Val Veny side' abounded. So, reinforced by a real cup of coffee, I headed off to the north-facing side of the ski area. Surprisingly the snow was good, there were no rocks, and until mid-morning I had it much to myself until Courmayeur's legions of habitués were out in force. Courmayeur has a unique ambience in that over 80% of its weekend visitors have been coming from Milan, Turin and Genoa since they were babes in arms. They've all grown up together, skied together, had kids together and see no reason why they should ski anywhere else. In addition to the well-trodden Italian family path there's a fair number of perma-singles now in their 40s, who are still living the weekend life of wealthy, unattached(ish) 20 year olds. The two main runs open, under the Plan della Gabba and Bertolini lifts, were in pretty good condition although the attraction of racing down the same pistes started to fade after a while. A nice lunch back in town and some Christmas shopping in Cham called. On Sunday more people were around showing off their new outfits and a few sightings of that very un-Courmayeur brand of people: the ski bums. Mostly English and Scandinavian, they've come over from Chamonix having heard that there's snow in Italy as opposed to grass in France. Baggy trousers, carefully cultivated scruffiness and the widest, longest skis known to man. The Cham dudes can be seen in the binding-deep and rather tricky powder that's around in the woods and on the un-bashed pistes. Shortly afterwards most of them retreat with the rest of us to the two now bone-hard but still fun pistes - no doubt some of them will be comparing gouged bases and blown edges a little later. Fashion has always been important in Italy and nowhere more so than on the slopes. Many of the big names such as Gucci and Prada are heavily involved in skiing and, whereas only Posh Spice would be seen dead in some of the outfits, in Italy they are highly sought after. It's sometimes hard to keep a straight face when the conversation comes round to matching skis and jackets. Much more snow is forecast for this week. This coming weekend is Sant'Ambrogio, the traditional start of the winter season in Italy. The town will be packed, the bars jumping and the full-length mink coats will be out in force. So far not a bad start. For more information on Courmayeur check out our Courmayeur resort report. | ||
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