THE SNOW
Everyone remembers last season, 07–08, as the best for many years. Right across the Alps there was good snow well into April, while the North American resorts had up to twice their usual snowfall.
But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Record high temperatures and rain in February melted much of the base across Europe and left the snow on the lower slopes full of water, so that it went straight from ice to soup as the day warmed up.
And all of that snow in the Rockies may have pleased people who adore powder so much they even enjoy it while it’s falling, but day after day of snowfall isn’t everybody’s idea of fun.
The statistics from last winter on the Historical Snow section of the Ski Club of Great Britain’s website are interesting. Some ski resorts gave astronomic snow depths each week on their upper slopes, either the result of a little poetic licence, one imagines, or of placing their yardstick in some snowhole at the top of a glacier…
So the results from the lower slopes are probably more indicative, and very few European resorts had more than half Val d’Isère’s depth of natural snow at village level. People wonder why Val d’Isère has comparatively little more on its upper slopes. The reason is simple: Val d’Isère measures at the top of Solaise, which is far from being an ‘upper slope’. They consider this measurement to be more relevant to skiers than the snow depth in some crevasse on the Pissaillas Glacier.
In all, 6m20 fell in the village last winter. From top to bottom, conditions were fantastic, right until the resort closed on 4 May. They normally are, partly because of the altitude – 1850m or 6000ft – and partly because the valley nestles against the peaks of the Italian border, and benefits both from Atlantic depressions, like other French resorts, and the Mediterranean low pressures, which drop their snow on the Italian Alps.
A further 1.8 million cubic metres of artificial snow were made by Val d’Isère’s 300 snow cannons, enough to cover the M4 from London to Bristol a foot deep! Nowadays this snow is excellent to ski on, and the base it makes is still there in June. It is amazing that one of the snowiest places in the Alps also has more cannon snow than anywhere else. Only 30% of a river’s water can be used for snowmaking, so Val d’Isère benefits from having two healthy streams. Some resorts with lots of cannon produce surprisingly little snow.
More important than how much snow falls or is made is how well it lasts.
Val d’Isère is tilted slightly northwards, protected from the warm southerly and easterly winds by a ring of high peaks. Its snow has always lain early, and lasted a long time. This season lasts from 29 November to 3 May. As well as the WSC, there are men’s World Cup races on the Face on 13 & 14 December.
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