It’s good, it’s all good. There’s snow everywhere, even Scotland. You can’t swing a cat in the Alps without it coming around again with six inches of snow on top of it. In fact it’s been snowing faster than I can update the blog so I haven’t bothered until now. The snowplough drivers are bracing themselves for another episode of ‘more of the same’ before the weekend and ‘powder alert’ emails are blocking up my inbox quicker than Bode Miller on the Lauberhorn last weekend. In Switzerland it looks like the Valais region got the most of it with the resorts of Saas Fee and Zermatt smugly reporting upto 80cm of the white stuff on their slopes. As I write, Alpe D’Huez are pinging me an email reporting a 20cms of snow. But look to Serre Chevalier who are wearing the “ I’ve got the deepest snow in the country” crown and it looks to continue puking down there for a while yet. In fact it appears as if the storms are brushing south of the Mont Blanc which has given good conditions at Monte Rosa (Gressoney, Champulac and Alagna) and Milky Way resorts (Sauze d’Oulx, Sestriere, Montgenvre). Italian resorts on the Swiss and Austrian borders have also faired well out of the storm cycles which also dumped about a foot of snow on resorts in the Dolomites. Austria looked likes it missed out on the really big numbers but snow has freshened up the resorts in both the Tirol and Salzbergerland regions with the Tirol getting the lion’s share.
In North America the Clinton/Obama campaign trail continues as do the excellent skiing and riding conditions, nearly all ski areas reporting packed powder conditions (nice groomed pistes to us Euros). The weather seems to have calmed down with most resorts reporting sunny, cold, conditions or light snow flurries .
Nothing but snow flurries in Canada, but what do they care as most ski areas are sitting on snow packs close to two metres deep. My choice for there would be the mighty Whistler Blackcomb ski area. The six feet of snow (yep, you read correctly) they’ve received so far in January has filled in some of their most exciting terrain and cult runs on Blackcomb mountain such as Couloir Extreme, Ruby Bowl and Spanky’s Ladder should be open for business and sending the locals into a frenzy for first tracks.
And the winner is… For unparalleled snow depths then check out Wolf Creek in south west Colorado (www.wolfcreekski.com) who can boast a summit base depth of 147 inches (367 cm in new money).
