Snow for the Euros.

"Another one that is intersting is La Thuile/La Rosiere. Kind of an odd layout, but straddling the FR-IT border. You can easily leave a car in La Rosiere, ski over to La Thuile in Italy and get a bus to Courmayeur."

La Thuile is a sleeper. Front side is flat and dead boring, but the NNW facing Fourclaz and Belvedere chairs are gems: Lots of dry stuff in the mornings, and west facing bits get great corn. We've been twice in spring, and had very good skiing. La Rosiere side was too warm. Also incredible high alpine touring off Piccolo San Bernardo pass (Lancebranlette etc).

Another unreal touring option is to drive to Colle San Carlo and park by La Genzianella Restaurant, then skin to Lago d'Arpy: it's an absolute wonderland for touring, and all yours. Mellow corn to steep powder couloirs. Drive back down to Morgex and have gelato at Cafe Pilier Centrale, then a Negroni at Cafe Mont Blanc. You will never have a better day.

Lago d'Arpy:

https://imgur.com/RORpea3

https://imgur.com/TC8l6uZ

If you like skiing steep couloirs, French pyrenees are the best. Barege/la Mongie, where i ski, has 80+couloirs, accessible by lifts.

Lots of snow

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You always make me want to go back to The Pyrenees :-)

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Originally Posted by Buke

I haven't skied it but I hear pretty good things about Prali if you're looking for under the radar locations. Like La Grave, Serre-Chevalier, and the Via Lattea resorts, it gets pounded by the retour d'est. Kind of like La Grave, Prali has a big lift served off-piste area.

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Thanks

Prali right up my street

La plagne is complicated.
Rather boring normal off Piste. But very very Bug terrain from the top which needs much snow and stable conditions.so I wouldn't go there fir a casual trip.

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Originally Posted by subtle plague

La plagne is complicated.
Rather boring normal off Piste. But very very Bug terrain from the top which needs much snow and stable conditions.so I wouldn't go there fir a casual trip.

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Good to know. Thanks! It was already definitely on the lower end of interest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rod9301

If you like skiing steep couloirs, French pyrenees are the best. Barege/la Mongie, where i ski, has 80+couloirs, accessible by lifts.

Lots of snow

Sent from my moto g 5G using Tapatalk

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Love the Pyrenees for cycling, but flying into Geneva, so won't be getting over there to ski on this trip unfortunately.

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Great list.
A few more places around Briancon that get dumps and are fun are Puy St. Vincent and Vars/Risoul. We liked the terrain between Montgenevre and Claviere in the Milky Way.
Puy has some great tree skiing skiers left and Vars has a little lower elevation t-bar over on skiers right that serves some great glades.
There's another little sleeper in there, Pelvoux on the backside of the Ecrins.

If you don't hook up with locals, a guide is really, really worth it at La Grave.

Val Frejus is a gas, really unexpected steeps and great sidecountry. Mont Cenis is good. La Norma is kind of flat.

We didn't make it over to the Queyras areas, 3 smaller areas with 1000m vertical each like Ceillac, Abries and Molines, but heard good things. Very low key and some good touring and huts along the French-Italian border.

Another one that is intersting is La Thuile/La Rosiere. Kind of an odd layout, but straddling the FR-IT border. You can easily leave a car in La Rosiere, ski over to La Thuile in Italy and get a bus to Courmayeur.

Note that it's really easy to get around. You can make it over to Courmayeur quickly by driving over the Col de Montgenevre, angle down towards Turin and from there head North to get to either Courmayeur/Cham or the Monte Rosa Champoluc Gressoney/Alagna. The drive from Bardoneccia/Oulx to Alagna is about 5 hours and really worth it if they have snow. You can also get a car train in the Simplon tunnel from Domodossola to Brig from where one can access Verbier and Cham to the west or Andermatt to the east as well as a ton of areas along the Rhone river valley.

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Thanks for all the info! I'd already read through a lot of your previous posts for info and was hoping you would chime in!

Putting La Thuile on the list now. Been through there on my bike and liked the town. Skiing over from France with a small pack would be fun!

And yes, we realize that even with extensive experience in the Canadian Rockies, we lack local knowledge and might need a guide in places like La Grave or Chamonix. The bank account just won't allow that too many days on the trip!🤣

Around Briancon, the old town itself is really cool, but the best town in the Serre Chevalier zone is Monetier Les Bains and the best skiing there is above Monetier.
Over in the Italian part of the Milky Way, Cesana is the best authentic old town.

After lots of great feedback from folks here, I booked 6 weeks of refundable Airbnbs for this current winter. Hopefully the snow cooperates or I guess I'll be scrambling to reshuffle everything. Thanks again for all the beta. Let me know if anyone is going to be overlapping with these plans. There should be a couch available for mags passing through except when family is in town.

Andermatt: 2/19-2/26
TBD: 2/26-3/8
-No Skiing-
Engelberg, CH: 3/13-3/18
TBD: 3/18-3/20
Chamonix, FR: 3/20-3/31

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Great list.
A few more places around Briancon that get dumps and are fun are Puy St. Vincent and Vars/Risoul. We liked the terrain between Montgenevre and Claviere in the Milky Way.
Puy has some great tree skiing skiers left and Vars has a little lower elevation t-bar over on skiers right that serves some great glades.
There's another little sleeper in there, Pelvoux on the backside of the Ecrins.

If you don't hook up with locals, a guide is really, really worth it at La Grave.

Val Frejus is a gas, really unexpected steeps and great sidecountry. Mont Cenis is good. La Norma is kind of flat.

We didn't make it over to the Queyras areas, 3 smaller areas with 1000m vertical each like Ceillac, Abries and Molines, but heard good things. Very low key and some good touring and huts along the French-Italian border.

Another one that is intersting is La Thuile/La Rosiere. Kind of an odd layout, but straddling the FR-IT border. You can easily leave a car in La Rosiere, ski over to La Thuile in Italy and get a bus to Courmayeur.

Note that it's really easy to get around. You can make it over to Courmayeur quickly by driving over the Col de Montgenevre, angle down towards Turin and from there head North to get to either Courmayeur/Cham or the Monte Rosa Champoluc Gressoney/Alagna. The drive from Bardoneccia/Oulx to Alagna is about 5 hours and really worth it if they have snow. You can also get a car train in the Simplon tunnel from Domodossola to Brig from where one can access Verbier and Cham to the west or Andermatt to the east as well as a ton of areas along the Rhone river valley.

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From La Grave we skied some cracking routes at Pelvoux and Montgenevre with a guide. A dedicated guide is ideal but if there’s just 2 of you and you are on a budget lookup skiers lodge or Snowlegend who will put you in a guided group and seek out the best conditions around the area.

Agree also on the suggestion above to get into Italy if conditions are good. Courmayeur/Hellbronner are just through the valley from Cham (and skiable with care without a guide) and Monte Rosa is a fabulous area in good snow. Can’t beat Italian food and ambiance.

From Cham you are also less than an hours drive from Verbier where the numerous unpisted itineraries offer lots of options and the sky is your limit with local knowledge

Booked our flights today! Super stoked! Fly into Geneva Jan 10, out Feb 10. Hopefully the snow comes, and we get to ski with some Mags in a few places!

Question for the Euro weather gurus...

We're looking at a third La Nina in a row here in the States. It's usually above average snowfall for my intermountain stomping grounds.

How does it affect Yurp and where does it help or hinder?

Thanks.

subtle is your guru here, but from what I recall, there's not much correlation one way or another.
Too bad klar isn't around much, she's also very much up on that kind of data.

Here's a thread from wepowder.com:
https://wepowder.com/en/forum/topic/228509

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Originally Posted by Djongo Unchained

Question for the Euro weather gurus...

We're looking at a third La Nina in a row here in the States. It's usually above average snowfall for my intermountain stomping grounds.

How does it affect Yurp and where does it help or hinder?

Thanks.

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Afaik there’s no correlation between snowfall in the alps and ENSO.

bro, do your own leg work.

Attachment 424698

^^^^^

That's fucking hilarious.




Thanks mags. I know SP's our old country weathermag. Didn't wanna pressure him for a forecast.
It's so far from the EPAC to western Euro, wasn't sure if it even gets that far.

-funny that 2 PNW mags reply, knowing La Nina is likely to wallop youse guys again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Djongo Unchained

Question for the Euro weather gurus...

We're looking at a third La Nina in a row here in the States. It's usually above average snowfall for my intermountain stomping grounds.

How does it affect Yurp and where does it help or hinder?

Thanks.

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No real Enso teleconnection in the data in the North atlantic /Europe. Small sample: both 98 99 ( still holds a lot of records here) and the horrible 10/11 and 21/22 were la Nina .

Thanks Subtle, and mags.

Not winter yet but a low snow line today and miserable rainy weather in The Valley. Summer is definitely over.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Twat

where did this weather come from? is this connected to the last hurricane in the atlantic?

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It's the begin of Fall. The polar Vortex is not yet at it's full strength, which would result in more Westerly weather, but some colder air is already available and if you are in the trough it can get cold.

meridional weather patterns are quite Common in fall. And right now we have a perfect example of that with a northerly flow.

https://www.severe-weather.eu/wp-con...aly-europe.gif

Detailed discussion with ECMWF, CanSIPS and CFSv2 models. The former 2 are predict less than normal snow, the latter predicts average to above average.

https://www.severe-weather.eu/long-r...tes-europe-fa/

I'll be there end of March, maybe even for subtles birthday.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

https://www.severe-weather.eu/wp-con...aly-europe.gif

Detailed discussion with ECMWF, CanSIPS and CFSv2 models. The former 2 are predict less than normal snow, the latter predicts average to above average.

https://www.severe-weather.eu/long-r...tes-europe-fa/

I'll be there end of March, maybe even for subtles birthday.

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Pretty hazy outlook. The only solution - put up your offering in the Ullr thread. It’s a better snow indicator than ENSO, I’ve done the analysis.

All I can say about forecasting a coming winter is, whenever I ask old timers around here what they think is coming, the answer is always “who the hell knows”

There's some old farmer in Europe that make winter predictions based on plants. I can't find his forecast.