Only 20cm of snow

20th Dec: Made it to le Tour early with Charlie, Luke, Lorne and Ally with the aim of lapping Tête de Balme, my favourite lift in the valley. 5 quickly became 3; Ally forgot his pass so headed back and Luke double ejected and popped his shoulder out second run so headed home to be safe. The pisteur at the bottom jokingly said to watch my skis as there was only 20cm of snow on rock. Ominous signs…

En route to Vallorcine Charlie front flip double ejected in a huge powder drift… Many chuckles were had. Good signs… 

Started our runs carefully as the conditions were 3/5 and the snow was a bit slabby. First few runs were spent rock dodging and the snow wasn’t great. Snow felt stable so ventured further into the bowl over a few rock bands and found huge snow drifts of brilliant fluffy snow directly under the chair. Totally unexpected. 

Had 3-4 epic runs of fresh tracks and even managed a few jumps and rock drops. Could've continued but Charlie had work. Left Tête de Balme with only our groups tracks bar 2 from a pair of Snowboarders. 

Best skiing of the season so far without a doubt.

Empty

Bowl skiers right of the chair

"Tapping" the tree a little harder than expected

NB. All apart from the top photo shamelessly stolen from Lorne Cameron