Ski Resort Parking

Next week I'm heading over to Val D'Isere for a course. I thought I would save some money by staying with a friend in Tignes and making the short drive to Val each day. However it looks like any savings will be more than eaten by the cost of car parking. In Tignes the parking is 15 Euros per day or 75 Euros per week, whilst Val D'Isere is very slightly cheaper. This includes the outdoor parking which used to be free in Val.

In Les Deux Alpes, where I am now, and in Andorra where I was last winter, there is plenty of free parking for both holidaymakers and seasonnaires. My last couple of visits to other resorts were to La Grave and to Hintertux, both of which had free parking. It seems there is quite a difference between resorts on this front so I am curious as to what parking charges are like in other ski resorts.

Please share your experiences of resort car parking in the comments.

Update

Those of you who have been following this blog will know that I have been trying to complete my Eurotest and BASI Level 4 exams in order to teach in France. The good news is that I passed the Eurotest last month and have only the Level 4 Technical to go. I passed the Level 4 Teach and Mountain Safety at the end of last winter.

I have moved out of Andorra and into the French Alps this winter in order to be closer to where the exams are taking place. The Alps and Pyrenees are both having a great season so far, with lots of snow.

How good do you need to be to teach skiing?

People often ask how to become a ski instructor, and I have covered this in previous posts. The next question is whether they are good enough, and this is a harder question to answer. It depends to an extent on where you plan to work. If you are going to teach beginners on a dry slope you don't need to be as good as somebody running a high level freeride clinic in the Alps, and if you want to teach in France you need to be prepared to pass some very difficult exams.

To get started, as an English speaker, you need to pass a Level 1 course, be it in the Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand. Level 1 is quite a limited qualification, and most instructors will want to carry on to Level 2 or higher as soon as they can, but it is a foot in the door. It will also give the potential instructor a very good idea of what is required before they book the Level 2 course. Knowing whether you are ready for the Level 1 course is difficult as most proficient skiers do not really know how good their skiing actually is.

To help with this, British Association of Snowsport Instructors (BASI) have published a set of videos on YouTube showing the criteria required to pass each level. The first video shows the short and long turns required to pass Level 1. This is a great help for deciding whether you are up to it or not.

Reconaissance walks

Whilst waiting for the snow to arrive, I took a walk out into the back country yesterday to have a look at the conditions. I have some climbs and ski descents planned for the winter, and I wanted to have a good look at the terrain, as well as the current snow cover. Understanding the geography of an area is a big advantage when it comes to skiing it safely as a lot of time can be lost by taking a wrong turn. As well as that it was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, and it is always surprising to find an apparent wilderness with few signs of civilisation only an hour's walk from an overdeveloped ski area.

Snow

After the last post on the late arrival of the snow this year, anyone planning to ski in Europe this winter will be glad to know that snow has been falling across the Alps (as well as the UK) over the weekend, and quite a few resorts have now opened. I have heard it is snowing in Chamonix and Les 2 Alpes, the Tignes webcams are showing white where there was only green a week ago, here in Andorra we have had a little snow overnight in parts of the country - up to 10cm, and the Spanish television is reporting good snow conditions in the Sierra Nevada (the Spanish one not the US one).

The weather patterns still look quite unsettled, so we may well see more snow before the end of the week. So there is a lot less reason for doom and gloom than just a few days ago.

Incidentally, this BBC Weather video does a good job of explaining why this autumn has been particularly warm and dry, and whilst it is referring to the UK, the same effects have given us a sunny, snowless November in much of the Alps and Pyrenees.

Is the snow coming?

This year the snow in Europe is running late - many resorts have postponed their opening, others have opened with a limited area. Ski races have been cancelled including World Cup races, and early season ski instructor exams have been cancelled as well. There is a lot of pessimism around some resorts, and people reading the snow reports might well be getting worried about the holidays they have booked.

On the other hand, the sun has been shining, and the skiing that is open has been pretty good. I have spent four weeks in Tignes, skiing on the glacier, and the conditions have been great - nearly every day has been sunny and clear, and the pistes have been kept in good condition. There was not a lot of off-piste but it was only November, so it would be unusual if there was.

I would post some photos, but I managed to lose my phone which they were stored in. Note to self - zip up all pockets before skiing. :-(

People tend to forget that every winter is different, that some begin early and others late. Good early snow early on does not guarantee a good winter any more than a late start means a bad one. It is still a few weeks before the season really kicks off with the Christmas holidays, so there is still time for it to snow. Here in Andorra only a couple of resorts have managed to open at all so far, so we are all waiting for the snow to come, but it is still a nice time of the year to be here, meeting old friends and new faces in the resort.

Skiing Mont Blanc

Summer has really flown by in the Alps this year and Chamonix has been a great place to have some skiing and climbing adventures. The skiing highlight was a descent (and ascent) of the highest peak in Western Europe back at the start of August. The highest peak in all of Europe, by the way, is Mount Elbrus in the Russian Caucasus near to the Georgian border.

As happens often with the best adventures I was invited on the trip at the last minute - the day before we set off - to make up a 3 man team with Benoit and Denis. My French is still not great, although it is improving, and Denis's English is at about the same level so Benoit had to act as translator a lot of the time.

Day one was the easy day - we caught the last lift of the day up the Aiguille du Midi at 6pm, then had a pleasant ski down to our campsite at the Col du Midi. There were ten or fifteen tents there already as this is a popular spot in high season. Weaving through tents on skis was a new experience for me. Then tent up, cooking and sleeping. Denis had opted to spend the night in the more expensive luxury of the Cosmiques Refuge, so we had a quick discussion of our starting time before he departed to warmth and a waiting cooked meal. We decided on a relatively late 4am start to allow the snow time to soften before our descent.

Camping below the Midi

Day two was the hard day we had to climb from 3500m to 4800m. I hadn't been that high before so I wasn't one hundred percent sure how my body was going to cope with the altitude. We started with a skate across the flat to the foot of Mont Blanc du Tacul where we put our skins on and began to climb. Just before the first bergschrund we switched to crampons and strapped the skis to our sacks. It started getting light near the top of the face of the Tacul, so we had a fantastic vantage point for the sunrise. At the shoulder Mt Blanc du Tacul we put skis on and enjoyed our first few turns of the day across Col Maudit and down to below Col du Mt Maudit. From here is the steepest climb of the ascent up to the col, and something of a bottleneck with the parties ahead of us following a line of fixed ropes. Avoiding the fixed ropes to the right we made faster progress and from the col is an easy contour across to the Col de la Brenva.

Col de la Brenva

Looking up to the summit - 500m vertical to go

From here is the long last slog up the summit slopes. The end is in sight but it feels like it lasts forever. There is nothing technically difficult but it is a test of fitness and acclimatisation. The summit itself is disappointingly flat - there is a rounded ridgeline and it is difficult to be sure where the highest point actually is. We went along the ridge in both directions a little way just to make sure we had covered the true summit. Suddenly, after seeing other parties ahead of and behind us all the way up there was nobody around to take a photograph of the three of us, so we had to make do with separate pictures.

Benoit on the summit

Denis and myself on the summit

After taking in the view we set off skiing down the North Face, a little to the (skier's) left of the ascent route so we had the slope to ourselves. The snow was surprisingly good - light and powdery despite it being windy enough that our tracks were soon filled in behind us. After a few hundred meters we had to traverse right to rejoin the track unless we wanted an extra ascent. From Col de la Brenva we decided to climb Mont Maudit as it was still early enough in the day. This gave us a second 4000m summit as a bonus tick, and also gave us the most challenging skiing of the day.

Benoit dropping in on Mt. Maudit

The North Face of Mont Maudit had not softened at all, and its upper section was the steepest of the day, so a few very cautious turns were called for on hard packed snow. The lower section was more powdery and we could have a bit more fun, being careful of the crevasses. Next was around half an hour of skinning back to the Shoulder of Mt. Blanc du Tacul and the final ski of the day. This was the part where we could leave tracks visible from the lift station, and although the snow was a little heavier with the afternoon sun and the altitude dropping below 4000m it was still good skiing.

All that remained was to pack up the campsite and make the final climb up to the cable car station where we had the chance to look back up at our tracks whilst waiting for the lift. Not a bad day's skiing for the start of August.