mega snow in La Rosiere!

Weds 3^rd Feb

It’s snowing! The forecast and much anticipated snow started falling about 8am and has been falling heavily all day. The temperature has dropped to a much more normal for Feb – 3 deg C. After a leisurely breakfast we kitted up and walked up through the winter wonderland to the ski station above us. After a quick internet session in the Tourist Office we bought cakes and found a café to have a coffee with them. This is normal in France and causes no problems – try that in the UK!

It was a total whiteout so the streets were quite busy, as most people were not skiing. We browsed in a few shops before walking back down to the campsite. The fresh snow was now 20cm deep around the van. A good excuse to use my snow shovel. I also got our folding plastic step out and retracted the electric step as they can get frozen solid when it snows then freezes.

Tonight is curry night – we have brought a take away with us, frozen of course. Boy are we looking forward to it.

Thurs 4^th Feb

It obviously had continued to snow through the night as when I looked out first thing all our footprints and the road in front were all hidden under a fresh layer of lovely powder snow. We were up early as we had to catch the 8.45am free ski bus, so quick cup of tea and I was outside clearing the snow from around the van and knocking off some of the amazing icicles hanging from everywhere. The trees looked lovely in their fresh coating. Then a monster snow plough arrived to clear all the roads and spaces, I again cleared the bank of snow it shoved in front of the van.

We gingerly walked down the freshly snow ploughed road, but Tina had her first slow speed fall of the day as she slipped onto her bottom! The bus was waiting for us, so skis into the carrier on the rear and we were soon outside the maison de ski. The weather wasn’t great so we opted for a 4 hour pass – a good decision as the visibility was very poor for most of the day. We had some bright spells when we could see the piste clearly but mostly we fumbled our way down in very flat light. Not good, but we still enjoyed ourselves finding some really good fresh snow to lay down our tracks in.

Once back at the campsite I got my telescopic ladder out and cleared 25cm of snow from the van roof. We also fitted the snow chains in preparation for getting out of the site tomorrow morning as there is yet more snow forecast for this evening. J