Its raining in town today, but that means that it is snowing in the mountains. Today's ski trip was to the Grands Montets to see at what altitude it was snowing.
The foehn wind was blowing here for a few days, and it has now abated to let some weather fronts pass over us, dropping some snow at altitude - on the Plan Jorn chairlift up to the Grands Montets the rain gradually turned to snow at around 1800 metres - a good level, as we could do with some wetter snow higher up to get the bigger high alpine routes in condition for the spring.
It was a pretty moist day, with lots of fog, so the Plan Joran area was a great place to ski, with trees for visibility, and a nice warm lodge to warm up in for lunch. The snow was starting to build up a bit on the firm pistes, and it was pretty grippy. Off piste was a bit icy where I was, but it should be getting softer all the time right now.
The Black Weekend festival is on for a few days, and there was a DJ playing with a great sound system at Lognan mid station, with a bar, tartiflette, and Black Crows skis demos.
The Pierre-a-ric piste down to the valley bottom was in pretty good shape, and it wasn't raining too much. The snow was a nice slushy consistency down towards the bottom. Hopefully the Black Weekend will parallel a nice white weekend on the mountain, with maybe some powder to ski too.
