After the previous day at Megève, which felt at times like a visit to the Scottish Highlands, I relocated to the village of Avrieux at the entrance of the Haute Maurienne region. Overnight, it snowed at elevation and cleared up by morning so I decided that the above-treeline locals ski area at the end of the valley, Bonneval sur Arc, would be the right call for the day.
There was a light cloud layer first thing, which cleared up by 10 am. The snow report said six to eight inches mid-mountain and more at the summit.
I took a photo of this trail that separates the upper and lower mountain because a local mentioned that a couple miles behind that ridgeline was Val d'Isère. Look at the far right of the pic (to be explained below):
As always, a clear sign that you're at an old-school ski area in France:
Who knows -- maybe one of my long-lost relatives manufactured the transmission bearings.
I love the 1960s Jetsons screens that tell you when to pull the platter:
While they were trying to get the summit open, I lapped the mid-mountain sector, which had six inches of wind-compacted new snow:
This snow under the chair skied much better:
Halfway down where that group is standing, at 2100m, is the rainline, after which it quickly stiffened up. Luckily, the lift-served terrain goes to 3000m.
Going back a half hour later to the photo above -- the entire slope slid due to the new snow falling on rock-hard cover. There are Gasex cannons several hundred feet above, but apparently they decided not to use them before opening the trail!
A few minutes later, one of the grooming team arrived, calmly shoveled a small pathway on the left for people to ski through, which was then followed by a snowcat that quickly groomed it out. No drama, no closing the sector for continued avy mitigation, nuthin! Imagine if that had happened at a U.S. ski area.
Circled at the beginning of the day is the area that slid 90 minutes later:
Later in the afternoon, you can see the far edge of the slide on the right and tracks alongside -- they didn't even bother to rope off the slope!
Here is one of the Gasex storage areas where propane and oxygen is supplied for avy mitigation blasts:
During the early afternoon, I ended up with a local who showed me lots of low-hanging fruit up top that I would've missed. He skied really fast and didn't want to wait around for me to take pix. In any case, a nice small powder day.
I finished with a mid-afternoon lunch in the cute tiny village. I ordred the classic Savoie winter main dish, tartiflette:
"Born in New York, Drunk Here!"
There was a light cloud layer first thing, which cleared up by 10 am. The snow report said six to eight inches mid-mountain and more at the summit.
I took a photo of this trail that separates the upper and lower mountain because a local mentioned that a couple miles behind that ridgeline was Val d'Isère. Look at the far right of the pic (to be explained below):
As always, a clear sign that you're at an old-school ski area in France:
Who knows -- maybe one of my long-lost relatives manufactured the transmission bearings.
I love the 1960s Jetsons screens that tell you when to pull the platter:
While they were trying to get the summit open, I lapped the mid-mountain sector, which had six inches of wind-compacted new snow:
This snow under the chair skied much better:
Halfway down where that group is standing, at 2100m, is the rainline, after which it quickly stiffened up. Luckily, the lift-served terrain goes to 3000m.
Going back a half hour later to the photo above -- the entire slope slid due to the new snow falling on rock-hard cover. There are Gasex cannons several hundred feet above, but apparently they decided not to use them before opening the trail!
A few minutes later, one of the grooming team arrived, calmly shoveled a small pathway on the left for people to ski through, which was then followed by a snowcat that quickly groomed it out. No drama, no closing the sector for continued avy mitigation, nuthin! Imagine if that had happened at a U.S. ski area.
Circled at the beginning of the day is the area that slid 90 minutes later:
Later in the afternoon, you can see the far edge of the slide on the right and tracks alongside -- they didn't even bother to rope off the slope!
Here is one of the Gasex storage areas where propane and oxygen is supplied for avy mitigation blasts:
During the early afternoon, I ended up with a local who showed me lots of low-hanging fruit up top that I would've missed. He skied really fast and didn't want to wait around for me to take pix. In any case, a nice small powder day.
I finished with a mid-afternoon lunch in the cute tiny village. I ordred the classic Savoie winter main dish, tartiflette:
"Born in New York, Drunk Here!"
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