Les Deux Alpes Snow Report: 18th February 2015
Peak season queue avoidance
Peak season rolled around on Saturday, with two French zones on holiday plus the English schools and a fair chunk of Belgium from the looks of it. Obviously it decided to snow all day again, which isn't something we're going to complain about, but doesn't make life easy for people trying to run about resort and change over apartments.
Something else which doesn't add to the sum total of joy in the world is half a ton of melting snow landing on your new van and smashing the windscreen. Top tip of the week: do not park your vehicle next to a building...
But leaving aside the whole headless chicken thing and the fact that Carglass take a week to replace a windscreen, things in resort are generally spiffing. The new snow added a significant amount to the pistes, which were in pretty good nick anyway, once it cleared up after Saturday the weather so far has been positively spring-like.
The only fly in the ointment is, as usual, the holiday-making hordes. Yes, I know we need you all to come skiing and it's lovely to have you, but there are rather a lot of you all at once! But there are ways to avoid the frenzy, and you get out there at the right times of day you'd almost think it was the week after New Year.
First up, if you don't have squeakers in ski school, don't go anywhere until 10:00. Lessons take off at 09:30, with the inevitable scrum at the key lifts. Relax with a bacon sandwich and leave space for the people who actually need to be there.
Once you're up there, stay high for the morning - instructors don't waste teaching time hauling their groups all the way up to the glacier, so it will be snake-free. If it's too cold and windy for your liking, go for the Fee or the Bellecombe, both generally under-frequented for some reason.
At the end of the morning, everyone will collect each other from ski school and head off to lunch. And this is the key to crowd-free skiing during peak season - whatever you do, do not eat lunch. Let's be honest, you snarfed more croissant than you needed this morning, you're going back to the chalet for tea and cake later on, and you're going to put away a three course dinner on top of that. You're not going to die of starvation if you don't have tartiflette at noon as well.
From midday until about 14:30 (15:00 if you choose the right places) the pistes will be near enough empty and you can whizz around without worrying about getting entangled in other people's lessons, being taken out by high speed teenagers or running over unpredictable small children. You won't have to hang about in lift queues either, because there aren't any.
At about 14:30 the restaurants empty, afternoon lessons start, lazy people who couldn't be bothered to get out of bed this morning turn up and parents released from zookeeping duties hit the pistes. This is a good time to start thinking about chilled beers and sunny terraces. The Diable au Coeur is a good spot for this, with its beer tent arrangement and outside seating. The Patachon on the Cretes is a good spot as well, with deckchairs outside, decking upstairs and a sun trap location. Relax a bit, allow yourself to be tempted by hot chocolate laced with Baileys and then head down the Valentin or the Diable before the end of day rush hour.
