After a cold start to the week we’re ending it with double digit temperatures again. I should say I’m taking my readings from the display I can see from my apartment in Jouvenceaux some 200mts below the village of Sauze d’Oulx.

At the start of the week it was reading a chilly -5. This morning when I left it was reading +5 and just now at 16.20 local time it was saying +10. You should take off at least 3 degrees to get near the temperature at the top of the mountain.

So with the colder temperatures at the beginning of the week we had all the cannons firing adding more artificial snow to the mix. As you might expect when the temperature drops the snow gets harder and you start to hear the dreaded word ‘icy’ being banded about in conversation. I will concede and say that good edges would have helped but I still wouldn’t say it was icy.

Today with the higher temperature the snow was a little more forgiving. I skied with 2 guys, one of which was a first week skier the other had a couple more weeks under his belt. We went over to Sestriere in the morning and then headed back to Sauze d’Oulx in the afternoon. Both enjoyed the day and found the conditions to be very good. Not one mention of ice!

I’ve skied pretty much everywhere in the Via Lattea this week thanks to skiing with a group of people that ski fast and drink fast! I’m happy to say that the snow coverage is good despite the fact that we are still waiting for the fist big dump of the season. It’s true to say that the best snow I’ve found is in Montgenevre and Clavier but don’t worry if you coming out to Sauze next week, the skiing is still good.

For the last 10 days we’ve had clear blue skies which is great if you’re here on holiday and a few people have been going home with some nice healthy glows. This morning there were clouds beginning to gather in the direction of the Frejus tunnel and the 3 Valleys. These did eventually make it over to Sauze and for a while we had flat light, which is no good at all if you have your sunny lenses in! They didn’t look too threatening though and by the end of the day the sun had made a return.

There is a system coming in this weekend that may or may not bring snow with it. As always it’s fairly hard to get a general consensus from the different weather websites that I look at. The one that I trust the most is saying snow all day Saturday and then from Monday onwards cold temperatures. If you’re coming out next week bring your thermals.

I’ve added a couple of photos taken by the group I’ve been skiing with this week. Thanks Clive.