Skiing above the clouds in La Plagne

Today the mountain was even more picturesque than usual as we enjoyed a clear and perfect blue bird day up in resort whilst the valley below lay wrapped in a thick blanket of clouds. 

From the top of any of the peaks in resort skiers could look down on a layer of white cloud filling the valleys so thickly it looked like a lake amidst the peaks. It didn’t affect our skiing as we stayed above the clouds all day long, despite skiing low down the Champagny side of the mountain and all the way into to Montalbert. We expected to drop into the cloud line at any moment but it was settled well below 1250m.

The mountain is in excellent condition with runs well covered all the way down to the low villages and the bald and icy patches of the first few weeks well covered up now. First lifts in the morning are where it’s at, as always when the runs are groomed into perfect fresh cords and the coverage is the best it’ll be for the day. As the afternoon wears on you’ll find a few spots going grainy with a pebble or two popping through and some of the lower runs not serviced by canons have a slight brown tinge to their snow, but all in all the vast majority of resort is open and the runs are downright beautiful.

In off piste terms, there’s not a huge amount of fluffy stuff left out there, the snow that remains un-ridden has set somewhat stiffly by now although if you’re willing to put some effort in and maybe even hike a little there are areas where fresh lines can still be had. Obviously if you’re going to do this do so with the proper avalanche safety equipment, knowledge of the area and never head off piste alone.

Now that the fresh snow has been skied many times over all those natural blacks La Plagne has commissioned this year are really starting to show their true shapes, with mogul fields popping up nicely all along them. If you’re a die-hard mogul skier definitely get out there and check them out to give your knees a work out. If you’d like to try your hand at it but aren’t too sure about beginning on a black I recommend heading up the Cretes drag lift at the top of the Becoin chair. This drag leads in to one of La Plagne’s best powder bowls with one red run running through the middle of it. This red has also been marked a natural this year and is a good one to try if you want to work your way up to natural blacks. At the moment with the snow the way it is that whole bowl is a rugged landscape of half moguls, gullies, crusty snow mounds and all sorts of natural features to test your skills. The run is as wide as you like and the bowl is even wider so you’ve no worry about running out of piste or getting stuck in a narrow channel as you might on the blacks. Give it a go if you fancy a challenge this week. 

In terms of what’s to come we’re looking at another week of blue sky days that are thankfully due to be a whole lot warmer now, with temperatures hanging around the -4 to -10 mark which is much more civilised than the -15’s of last week. We’re also due to see a little fluttering of snow on Friday night and through Saturday although with no cm’s predicted on the forecast we need to do some finger crossing and some snow dancing to get that flutter upgraded to a dump.

Basically folks it’s looking like another beautiful week in La Plagne with a fully open resort, blue sky days, plenty of snow and temperatures less likely to give you frost bite. I hope you’ve got plenty of time to get out there and enjoy it this week.