Alpe d’Huez Spends Still More on Sarenne

Following a huge investment in summer 2014 in installing floodlighting and snowmaking along most of the length of 'the world's longest black run' Alpe d'Huez say their lift company has spent a further €1.75m this summer completing the job.

The Sarenne piste is the resort's big draw and the investment last year allowed it to open every day through to 12th April last season allowing 370,000 skiers and boarders to descend it, the resort says.

The latest investment covers the final 4.5km of piste down to the Alp Auris ski lifts with 30 more snow cannons installed. The Alpe d'Huez lift company hopes this will ensure the piste will be open every day and some evenings from 5th December 2015 through to 24th April 2016.

I find this a little depressing :cry: . One of the most attractive features of the Sarenne run was that it was "on the other side" of the mountain with no lifts, houses or other signs of human interference with nature. Not exactly the complete wilderness experience that the true ski tourers might experience but probably as close to it that on-piste skiers can get.

I would worry that floodlights and lots of snow cannons would take from the experience :cry:

Are black runs not all about having variable snow conditions given then are invariably not that steep? As for night skiing cannot see any appeal in that!

I disagree with you two! (That is a rarity with these two posters)

If you do not wish to go night skiing, then having lights will make no difference to you. Where I have encountered night skiing, (Obergurgl, Keystone Colorado, Ski Welt, etc), I have often had an early dinner, and extended my ski day ~ not just for additional skiing, but also, night skiing is quite a different ski experience.

Regarding snow cannons, all that is doing is ensuring a base to the run. In Niederau, one of the FIS race course runs used to be a bit stony at the end of the day. If you had heaps of experience on that particular run, you knew the ways around the issue, but many didn't.

The locating of snow machines significantly reduced/eliminated that particular issue, without changing the main experience.

Anyway, the Sarenne is only dark grey.....

Having tried only once in Norway it just didn't work for me. Too cold and the lighting made it a bit like skiing in cloud, you just couldn't quite get comfortable. Maybe a glass of wine or something stronger over dinner makes chillblains more bearable and helps the body relax.

More than happy to share the wine but the night skiing I will leave to more robust skiers than myself.

J2SkiNews, are you sure they've installed floodlighting along Sarenne, from this photo it looks like they have just attached a few lights to the snow cannons to mark the way for skiers on the weekly Sarenne by Night Experience.



http://www.alpedhueznet.com/events/sarenne-by-night-experience-alpe-d'huez-valley-678101

Whether we like it or not, the aim of lots of resorts is to have the capability to cover as many pistes as possible with artificial snow. In order to keep the pistes open for the entire season it's becoming increasingly necessary to lay down a base of artificial snow at the beginning of the season. The usual procedure is to put a layer of 40cm down for the start of the season in mid December. Then in early January when it's still cold enough for efficient snow making they add another 20cm. All this is equivalent to an awful lot of natural snow. When they install the snow making equipment they also remodel the slopes. The end result isn't a pretty sight.



The introduction of grooming machines fitted with winches has enabled the resorts to groom the whole of a piste, before it wasn't possible to groom the steeper sections. Some of the grooming machines are now equipped with snow depth measuring systems so the operator and the resort know the depth of the snow at any point on a piste to an accuracy of a few centimetres, this allows them to distribute the snow much more precisely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bMu9jHH_Qs&list=PLFx1hlrhOJXdvovZJ7IXUInRCfZbErw9Z&index=2

All this means that these days there is a lot less variation in the condition of the pistes and piste skiing is much less challenging experience than it used to be.

Strangely the even though this GPS snow depth measuring technology has been around for a while the European resorts still base their snow reports on the stake in the ground method to measuring method, perhaps it's time they came up with a better solution. Resort snow depth measurements in Europe are very iffy and the snow reports don't include the depth of artificial snow. The situation in the states seems to be different http://www.breckenridge.com/mountain/snow-reporting-faqs.aspx

Good point about the Sarenne lighting, SB. I note the ski instructors are all wearing head torches.

On the night ski routes I have skied, I have just used the piste lights provided. This does result in following your own shadow, and I can see why some folk would be discomforted.

However, I do like to ski by head torch, certainly down runs that I know well.

But then, two seasons back, I skied down the Marbachjoch in total darkness....