I started the blog last week with adjectives that are the complete polar opposite to ones that I would choose to describe the weather this week. The weather, and more telling the temperature, has been flipped on its head. Last week we were experiencing temperatures reaching as low as -20, yesterday we were nudging +25 (admittedly in direct sunshine).

Whilst last week saw cold temperatures not unholily out of place during January, we are now experiencing typical late season conditions. For those out this week this isn’t a bad thing. They have a week of glorious sunshine and some pretty good skiing. The pistes have soften up nicely and have taken on a completely different feel to how they were skiing last week.

The Jouvenceaux chairlift is now operational and a couple more runs have opened most noticeably the Gran Pista run taking you from just below Sportinia to Jouvenceaux. They’ve also managed to open run 41, which is off to the left of the Bourget drag lift. Also open now is run 12 which takes you to the mid station of the Jouvenceaux lift. This means that all the regular lifts in Sauze are now open.

It goes without saying that we cannot sustain these temperatures for a long period of time without the snow taking a battering. They have already taken the decision to close the bowl, and therefore the link to Sestriere, on Thursday in order to carry out essential piste maintenance work. The plan is to re-open this on Friday.

This remains the only link that has been open from Sauze so far this season. I did notice last week, when the temperatures allowed, the cannons were blowing on the top runs in Sansicario. I suspect that given another week of cold weather we may have had that link open too. Hey ho.

The link between Montgenevre and Claviere is open which offers some very good skiing and is certainly worth taking a trip over. If you’re with a tour operator then they’ll be running one trip during your stay to Montgenevre. If you’re coming out independently or you fancy more than one day in France then local taxi firms are running minibuses. The price for a return trip is €130 for up to 4 people and €150 for up to 8 people.

It’s never easy to predict what conditions will be like in a few weeks time so when my answers to such questions seem evasive it isn’t because I’m dodging the subject, it’s because I genuinely don’t know. I can only report on what the conditions are like now and whether we have any snow forecast in the next few days. Believe it or not I’ve already been asked what the conditions will be like next Christmas. I hope my reply was courteous but I believe the email dropped into my inbox during a particularly bad day so if that was you, and if I offended, I didn’t mean to 🙂

To summarise then we have some good skiing this week, all things considered, with warm sunshine. We certainly could do with some more snow but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any in the immediate forecast. The warm weather and clear sky’s look set to continue into the beginning of next week with freezing levels above 2500mts. This will obviously have an effect on the snow, quite how much time will tell.