All change in La Plagne's weather

We had a little preview of it on Saturday actually when the snow that was due to fall on us on turned out to be much more like rain than we hoped. The temperature was too warm below 3000m for the snow to freeze, so it rained instead and Saturday was a soggy wet day out on the mountain with bad visibility and water logged, sticky snow under foot.

The Negative Neville’s amongst us said that was the end of it, once the rain starts the snow will be gone and the season is over but no, once again La Plagne prevailed and when the rain stopped the sun came back out and the snow had survived admirably with very little noticeable damage to the snow pack.

It has to be said that there are a few more patches of mud and grass popping up around the mountain than there were a week ago, but they are predominately off-piste and the runs are holding onto some excellent, if a little slushy coverage.

For the last few days we’ve had a return to blue sky blissful form, with the glacier open and the snow up there and at the Roche De Mio pretty darn perfect. The Champagny side of the mountain has been lovely although the runs down to Champagny village have finally lost their battle and even Les Bois is closed now, meaning that the only way down to the village is via gondola.

Montchavin and Montalbert are still accessible however and you’ll find snow all the way to the villages. If you want to experiment with the low altitudes I’d recommend heading to Montchavin out of the two, Montalbert is an all or nothing kind of decision, once you’re on the run you’re staying on it all the way to the village and the cable car. With Montchavin you have the option of bailing out several times on the way down as you pass several different lift stations and can quit or keep on down depending on the snow conditions.

This idea is going to be worth checking out over the next few days when we see the end to our sunny bluebird days, as the clouds are rolling back in bringing with them daily snow or possibly –snow gods forbid – rain. The visibility will drop with the clouds and you’ll want to get in the trees, so cruising around the Montblanc run is ideal and you can again check the snow conditions and also the freezing level hopping on a lift when it starts to get a little wet.

The conditions from now through the end of the week will probably be similar to last Saturday, on and off drizzly days that are wetter than we’d like but not wet enough to cause any real damage to the snow. What we really need is for the temperature to take a dive before next Saturday, when we’re due a 19cm dump of snow. I would very much like that to fall as snow because if we get 19cm of the dirty R-word we may well be done for so much as we’ve all enjoyed these balmy spring days, fingers and toes crossed for a drop in temperature soon!