J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by msej449

Etablons baby slope (left), La Tzoumaz

Picture taken: 07-Feb-2017 PM

Temps last 24H @1500m min/max: -3.1C/+4C

Summary: Enormously better conditions than this time last week. All pistes skiable, with powder cover and sound base, albeit thin in places. Off-piste OK, but very variable.

New snow Today: 20mm

Roads near resort: Thin snow. Side roads and drives slushy.

La Tzoumaz, Verbier 4 Vallées - Heavy snow started at 09:00 this morning (4feb17), temp on balcony 0C see video. Note road in bottom right now fully snow-covered. The forecast is for this to fall for a few hours. Geneva Airport is posting that people should arrive 3h before their flight out (extended security checks, not weather - raining in GVA).



Later this afternoon the snow cleared and temp now about -1.5C, so time for an apero' ....



A much-needed snow top-up, with similar forecast for tomorrow.

La Tzoumaz (Verbier 4 Vallées)

Picture taken 04-Feb-2017

Upper Slopes : New Snow, Lower Slopes : New Snow, Off Piste : Variable.

Wind, High: Up to 130Kph closing some lifts.

Last Update @16:25 4.2.17

My wife and I did Vail and loved it. I was on business in New York and she flew out from the UK, to Denver. There are resorts nearer to Denver, but I think Vail's worth the extra 1h drive and it's right on the freeway, so very easy to navigate to (if the pass is open, obviously). We hired an apartment at a price comparable to hotel room-only, so had space to eat in and relax, although there was a lot of hotel accommodation on offer. Hotel facilities like the cinemas, pools and dining were still available to non-residents. The ski area is very large and the density of skiers was low. There aren't the same number of double-diamond runs as at some other resorts. I liked the 'bowl' ski areas, which are something of a cross between off-piste and piste. However, it was expensive and of course, a fair trek compared to the Alps. My wife took 3-4 days to really get over jetlag, transfer effort and altitude, so I wouldn't go for just a week. Like Switzerland, you can keep food costs down if you're careful about vetting prices where you're dining.

Having been to Canada in the Summer - Vancouver, Jasper, Lake Louise (where it snowed!) and Calgary - I'd suggest also considering there as another option. I think that if I was to go out from the UK then I might prefer Canada for reasons of immigration alone - it took my wife hours to get through US immigration, and us 10 minutes to get through at Vancouver.

And for those of you flying home via Geneva Cointrin: They've re-vamped the area opposite the main display boards and it's now a sit-down, waitered café. And you can't see any departure boards from it. Odd pricing e.g. hot dog, small salad and crisps 12 CHF and a tart 14 CHF (so I went for the hot dog, obviously). At the end of the satellite departure gates (A, B etc.) there's some shops and another café so you might prefer to wait until the gate is announced.
The GVA app was much quicker than the easyJet app in sending out the Gate details, and is free, so worth downloading before you go.

As a guideline, I booked our car direct via hertz.ch - worked out at just under CHF 40(£32)/day, all-in, winter tyres and chains and vignette. Diesel manual 4-door Alpha. CHF 34 (£27.40)to refill 21.3L @1.58CHF(£1.27)/L on the autoroute at Bursins (Hertz rate is 3.8CHF/L if not full!). 396Kms total (GVA<>La Tzoumaz plus day out to Sion Marché de Nöel). Hertz CH were doing a 25% discount offer when I booked in November.

Example on-piste prices, CHF: Veal sausage & fries 15 (£12); Veg Soup, Bourgigone 7.50 (£6); Coffee, Hot Chocolate 4.50 (£3.60); 125cl Wine 8 (£6.50). Actually, prices on-piste were slightly less than we paid at the autoroute service station.

So second and final day of pre-Christmas skiing in the Savoleyres sector. Lovely at altitude first thing:



Rather colder today, with a max 1C on the notice board at 2300m but colder than that in the shade. Piste again holding up well under Sunday traffic levels, but the odd grey patch appearing. However, at altitude, looks like there's enough snow on the piste-side to be pushed onto the piste and deal with these.

Going back down in the gondola to La Tzoumaz, more patches on lower slopes and almost no snow below 1600-1700m. Here's the final run into the village and as you can see, they're trying to work their way uphill filling it with the snowgun stockpiles. There's hardly any on the upper part, and this continues up to around 1700m.



So whist the upper slopes will be fine though to Christmas, and temperatures seem OK, it really needs some new snow for the lower slopes.

Some of the upper slopes of Savoleyres opened yesterday. Weather is lovely and the pistes were in surprisingly good condition. Official Temp at Savoleyres 2200m peaked at 8C but I don't think the air temp was that high, more like 3-5C. Slopes didn't get slushy in the afternoon but seemed to stand up OK. CHF 45 for Savoleyres zone. Didn't ski Verbier. No good for off-piste but on-piste was a fun day, with surface holding up well. Slopes were almost empty (above, lunchtime at Savoleyres, only 3 others in cafe [below] and one of those was a dog) so snowboarders were loving the long sweeping curve situation. We were pretty much completely on our own most of the time, until later in the afternoon - although most of those seemed to be instructors out on training.