Tignes Dec 2010

Just got back from Tignes, an eventful week to say the least. The snow conditions were excellent, though the temperature was sub-zero all week. -9c to -20c with a wind chill to match. I can't remember needing so many layers before!
Monday bright sunshine and a perfect first day, skied top and bottom, Tignes glacier right down to Le Brevieres near the dam.
Tuesday went out with quite a fast group, 3rd run was down La Face, first day open following the Mens World Cup Giant Slalom and Slalom on there at the weekend, 5 days of water being sprayed on the slope made for an interesting decent. OMG!
5cm of snow was forecast for Thursday night, we woke up to a foot or more. There were only a handful of runs open on Friday, just a beginners runs in the morning and a few more in the afternoon, we managed to get out for a couple of hours on on-piste powder skiing. Good fun but in very poor vis, sods law as soon as we got back to the chalet it cleared!
Saturday, the sun returned for a perfect start to the last day. Dropping into the Fornet valley was a mistake, as always it was a few degrees colder over there and a strong wind blowing up the valley made for a very uncomfortable decent, but back to Val by ski bus and we were back on track. The weather closed in again in the last hour but that did little to dampen the spirits.
One sobering point, two mates had a very lucky escape after getting hit by an avalanche. A lost ski and one of them being buried up to the waist, it so easily could have been so much worse. A lesson learned for both of them.
You take a bit of chance skiing mid December, we've had a couple of iffy weeks in the past, this year it paid off big time.

Good report Andy, Winter has definetly arrived then.