An unusually large high pressure system is currently sitting over Siberia pushing cold air towards western Europe and cold it certainly is! This week temperatures of -21 C have been recorded in Sportinia which almost makes one want to stay in bed and have a duvet day but when the snow is this good you have to get on out there.

For a week now we’ve had a weather system hanging over us, which has brought a far amount of snow with it. The heaviest was on Tuesday when it started to come down really nicely. The old saying though about it being to cold to snow is true in certain respects as the other days have seen very fine snow almost like crystallised dust. Not really what we would ideally like however snow none the less. If the temperature had been slightly warmer then we would have ended up with a lot more, dare I say we might even have had our first big dump of the season.

Please do not think that I’m complaining, conditions at the moment are excellent. The official snow depths given out by the lift company say we have 80cm on the lower slopes and 120cm on the upper slopes. On piste conditions are good although just watch out for the odd hard patch lurking underneath the surface. With temperatures being what they are at the moment this is only to be expected. Off piste has made a welcome return this week however many of the good areas are now all tracked out.

The run from the bottom of the Sportinia chair lift to Jouvenceaux opened today which means that at last I can ski home as opposed to taking the lift down, happy days! Those people that are staying in Jouvenceaux will need to set off from Sportinia down red 11 then take a left turn onto Gran Pista and follow that all the way to Jouvenceaux.

The week ahead looks like it’s going to be clear with the cold temperatures staying with us for at least another 7 days although I don’t think that it’ll be as cold as the week we’ve just had. There might be some wind about Monday and Tuesday but hopefully not too strong. More snow is forecast for the weekend of the 11th February.