Sunbathing central in La Plagne this week

It’s happened, it’s finally happened; spring skiing is here! The sun is out the sky is blue and it is warm warm warm out there

After almost a full week of white outs, cloud banks and fog swirling around the weather finally got its act together and Sunday dawned bright and clear with a beautiful pink sky sunrise and then clear blue skies all day long.

It was an absolutely stunning day for those of us who could enjoy it, alas a real kick in the snow balls for the guests who left resort on Sunday and in our case the staff members whose hotels closed this week. Instead of getting to ride one last bluebird day they instead drove out of resort under the clearest blue sky we’ve seen in weeks, sorry guys, sucks to be you!

The sunshine has continued now for three days straight and we have made the most of it, packing in all the spring skiing fun we’ve been denied for the last few weeks. There have been beers in the sun, deck chair chilling, goggle tan perfecting, and picnic lunches and not too many hours from now there will even be a barbeque. Of course there has also been skiing, spring skiing in all its glory!

The conditions out there are great, there’s a great amount of snow left on the majority of the mountain and even in the sketchy areas it’s remarkable how well the runs are maintained when there’s no snow even an inch to the side of the poles. Under the Arpette and Verdon Sud lifts, it’s looking extremely green and in places the side of the pistes are completely bare but the runs themselves are still looking damned good, well done La Plagne pisties!

The snow itself is definitely on the slushy side of frozen but it’s also very changeable from run to run and also throughout the day. It’s still cold enough at night that the runs are re-freezing solid (trust me if you were to try a bit of night time bum boarding on the Stade Olympic you would pick up an epic amount of speed on the icy slope) but the sun is warm enough in the mornings that the slopes are already softening up by the time the lifts open. Some of the shadier slopes are retaining a more icy demeanour but by mid-morning most have a layer of soft stuff covering the hard packed ice underneath and by mid-afternoon it’s slush city all over resort.

I’m personally a big fan of slush, I’d take it over ice any day of the week, but I do know that it’s a lot easier to deal with on a board than skis. They call it poor girl’s powder and you can ride it accordingly and have a great deal of fun but on skis I know it’s much more of a leg burner and can give you old man knees almost instantly. If your legs aren’t up to it make sure you’re getting out earlier in the day and sticking to the higher northern slopes to avoid the worst of it. If you are up for the slush then what are you waiting for? Hit up Champagny at 3.30pm and get amongst it!

Please, please, please do get out and make the most of it whilst the sun is shining because I do not have any faith that it’ll last and in fact the weather forecast is already showing ‘snow’ for Wednesday which I suspect might fall as rain over most of the resort, one last sunshiny day Thursday and then snow showers turning to rain from Friday straight through the weekend, boo! 

Fingers crossed that the forecast changes but just in case get your sunbathe on as much as possibly whilst you can, and don’t forget that Sublicimes is still going on, get hot tubbing, bungee-ing and burlesque dancing, f you’re lucky you can even meet a yeti!