White Christmas in the sunshine in Les 2 Alpes

Good snow conditions and sunshine over Christmas week

featured in Snow Report Author Alex Armand - TipTop Ski Coaching, Les 2 Alpes Reporter Updated 11 January 2019

It's been a white Christmas in the sunshine here in Les Deux Alpes. The snow on the pistes is just fantastic, with great groomed runs to be had all day long. The weather over the last few days has been cold and clear, bluebird!

Sadly, towards the end of last week we saw a big change in the weather, and the Alps were hit by rain up to 2300m. This has made the oﬀ piste not great but has not eﬀected the quality of the snow on the pistes higher up. The runs back to resort have been a little icy ﬁrst thing and sometimes closed till mid-morning. The ski patrollers open these runs when they feel they are safe. The resort has been working very hard to make snow on these lower slopes and they are improving day by day.

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The glacier

The snow up on the glacier is just fantastic – cold winter snow, as it should be. The views have been amazing with 360º panoramic over the National Park de Ecrins and over towards Mont Blanc. All the winter runs are open here, including the Lauze which is the very last T-bar giving access to 3600m. The Signal runs are in particularly good condition and deﬁnitely worth making your way up top to enjoy. The mornings are nice and sunny up here.

Toura & La Fée

Toura is still beneﬁting from the new eight-person chairlift. Every time I ski there I think what an improvement this is. The snowpark is more open and therefore safer with more space for everyone to enjoy the jumps and boxes at their level. Being north-facing, the snow is holding very well here and the blue runs to the right and left of the lift are in perfect condition and great fun. They are gullies so create a natural half pipe to play with.

La Fée is classically a fantastic oﬀ piste area but, sadly, with the rain, we have seen that the snow has been adversely aﬀected. The oﬀ piste isn’t worth going on at the moment, however, the pistes are again in brilliant condition. Corduroy blues and reds to enjoy some carving on. The blacks are also in great condition, although carving down these steep backs is not for the faint-hearted! Lovely short turns would be a more enjoyable choice. La Fée's beauty never fails to impress both me and my clients. The mountains are spectacular and the piste Fée 1 allows you to enjoy this whilst skiing on a long blue run. There are some ﬂat areas on this piste so snowboarders should be conﬁdent on a ﬂat board and/or take a willing skier with them.

Bellecombe & Vallée Blanche

The north-facing area of Bellecombe has fantastic snow and the pistes are steep but in good conditions. The Bellecombe 6 black run, formally known as the “Grande Couloir”, can be quite tricky. It is really a very steep run and isn’t piste-bashed regularly. The entrance to this run can be misleading as the start is the equivalent to an easy red. But don’t be fooled, the main pitch is steep and diﬃcult, a real black!

The Vallée Blanche is open and gets the sun ﬁrst thing in the morning. The runs are nicest later in the day when the snow has softened. This is a great area to explore, especially when the resort is busy and can be accessed via the access Valley Blanche run followed by the Cote chairlift.

Cretes & Bas de Piste

Cretesis the main beginner, low intermediate area. Its wide blue is a good one to start with, and also a great training area for better skiers. The piste is always well looked after so carving and short turns can be great fun here. The quick turn around on the piste with the Cretes chairlift means that you will see a lot of ski schools and instructors using the piste.

The magic carpet is the easiest of the lifts and you will see lots of children groups here. This is fantastic for those that want to experience being high up in the mountains but don’t quite have the skill level yet for the green and blues. All the runs that return to the resort start from here. You have the choice of green, blue, red or black. All the runs baring the red are currently open, although the blacks normally have a delayed opening to allow them to soften in the mornings.

At the Bas de Piste, all the runs have good snow cover but can be busy at going home time. You are able to download on all the lifts if you prefer.

The forecast

As said, the conditions here in Les Deux Alpes are fantastic at the moment. The forecast is for it to stay cold and clear, so we expect conditions to stay the same into January. Happy New Year!