La Tzoumaz Snow Reports - December 2016

No problems parking the skis ..

Picture taken 09-Dec-2016

Upper Slopes : Thin Cover, Lower Slopes : Bare Patches, Off Piste : Prohibited.

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.

Looks good to me. No complaints if you are skiing and the sun is shining (and you don't have to queue for food/drink breaks!)

msej449 wrote:

No problems parking the skis ..

Picture taken 09-Dec-2016

What a shame someone had to walk all over that lovely cord! :)

Jealous really, enjoy it msej!

Pistes are in a very good condition and Savoleyers side facing away from Verbier holds snow really well despite lower altitude. Plus snow cannons ran on most nights at least until very recently. Other side is destroyed by sun; foehn also didn't help. Verbier was very busy today. Fingers crossed weather breaks before Christmas. At the moment it feels like these blue skies are staying with us for quite some time yet

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.

VBS, the sun is much too low in the sky at this time of year to melt the snow, the damage was mainly caused by the Föhn. It blew for the second longest period since records began. It causes massive damage to the snowpack http://pistehors.com/foehn-call-24662200.htm

At the moment there is a high pressure 'block' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_(meteorology) it won't snow until it disappears. Fortunately it's cold enough to make artificial snow.

SwingBeep wrote:VBS, the sun is much too low in the sky at this time of year to melt the snow, the damage was mainly caused by the Föhn. It blew for the second longest period since records began. It causes massive damage to the snowpack http://pistehors.com/foehn-call-24662200.htm

At the moment there is a high pressure 'block' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_(meteorology) it won't snow until it disappears. Fortunately it's cold enough to make artificial snow.

Yes, I know. Coincidentally it blows pretty much from the same side as the sun shines. We are resigned to a likelihood of no new snow this year. I have visitors again this year otherwise I wouldn't bother wasting time off on ski holiday until it starts snowing properly. Skiing on packed icy slopes with holiday crowds is an accident waiting to happen.