A group of people are sitting outside of a building with snow on the mountains in the background

A purple inflatable bag is sitting on top of a snow covered slope

An aerial view of a snowy mountain with tracks in the snow

A group of people are skiing down a snow covered slope while a paraglider flies overhead

Courchevel Snow Report: 16th February 2008

featured in Snow Report Author Alan Furniss, Updated 3 November 2015

10 days in a row now with not a cloud in the sky. The snow cover is standing up well however, to being assaulted by the sun all day and every day as the air temperature is quite cold. I wish I could say the same for my face which could best be described as ‘dark brown leather’. In Courchevel 1300 it’s around -4°c at dawn and the new generation of snow cannons are being run all night to create gigantic piles of snow all over the resort. These piles are then smeared across the piste at dawn every morning by the ‘Pisten-Bully’ machines.

Today, Saturday, is the start of one of the busier weeks of the season with two thirds of France on holiday and a large proportion of the rest of Europe. We have 115cms of snow depth on the lower slopes and 122cms on the upper slopes so there’s plenty to go around! Over the past few days we’ve skied most of Courchevel with the odd foray into the Méribel valley. The snow’s a little hard in places, it has to be said, but in general conditions are pretty good.

Quite often our trips into Méribel are down towards the Rhodos or Rond Point areas, in search of a change of venue for lunch. As you come over the top at La Saulire, just keep forking right down a succession of blues (Geai & Biche) and it’s a long continuous run to the Rhododendron restaurant which is a really good value self service with a restaurant & balcony upstairs. Yesterday, just alongside here a huge airbag and ski jump had been built by the company BigAirBag.com (…does exactly what it says on the bag) and people were practising all kinds of aerobatics on ski and board before landing safely in the bag.

Last night, as I mentioned earlier in the week, was the French entry in the annual Courchevel fireworks competition. This was held in 1550 on the piste between the Tovets chair & Grange bubble. On the opposite side of the road and in pole position for a grandstand view is L’Oeil du Boeuf restaurant (‘Bullseye’). This tiny little 200 year old hut with just 8 tables inside, serves all kinds of stuff….as long as it can be cooked over the open fire at the end of the room. There’s no choice of vegetable, just potatoes & onions baked in the embers of the fire. It’s not cheap with Chateaubriand at something north of €65 for two at the high end of the main courses but it is always very good. The final entry in the fireworks competition, the Italians , will put on their show in Courchevel 1300 on Tuesday at 7pm, alongside the lake.

On the outlook for the coming week, the first half looks to be blue skies & hot sunshine with the chance of a bit of snow around Wednesday/Thursday. You never really know though with the weather in the mountains – it can be very fickle!