Too Much Snow!

Started the day in Fornet, but it was still overcast, still snowing and there was TOO much snow (a total of well over 50-60 cm has fallen in the last 24 hrs there); none of the lifts above the cable car were open! So I went to Tignes where there was less snow (only 30-40 cm of fresh snow). Very nice especially on slopes that are not subjected to the warmth of the sun during the odd clearing spell. See photo below - I took the photo with my phone so the quality isn't that great, but it gives you a good idea of the conditions! 

One unfortunate thing today: a large group of French students from one of the Engineering Universities, 'ARTS et METIER', set off a couple small slabs above us as we were getting some nice turns in between the Face (in Tignes) and the Rimaye just down from the Vanoise chairlift in the Grande Motte Secteur. The slabs weren't huge but enough to knock Clive and Graham over. The fact that these young people had no comment other than, 'calmez vous', wound me up so much that it almost came to blows. Tignes (and Henry's Avalanche Talk) does a great job in trying to educate their clientele about off-piste safety and avalanches. Too bad the 'educated' are so ignorant and unwilling to learn how to have fun and be safe in the mountains... click here to get back to the HAT web site

Looks like clearing for tomorrow morning then another bit of snow in the afternoon/evening then clear weather for Weds, Thurs and Fri. So spring conditions will probably returning soon!

Comments

[Henry]

Thanks surfcat those are cool! henry

[Surfcat]

Hi

Thought you might be interested in seeing these pics of an avalanche that happened yesterday (21st April) in Chamonix.

Fortunately no casualties were recorded.

http://skiblog.chaletsdirect.com/skiblog/2009/04/spring-avalanche-on-mont-blanc.html