Sun & spring snow in La Plagne

Many people write off spring skiing because of the slush, because it’s not fluffy dry champagne powder. True, you can’t knock a good foot of fresh pow, but I’ll take a slush mountain over some other conditions any day, ice for example. I have an innate fear of ice that goes back to my beginner boarding days when I couldn’t keep an edge on anything remotely icy and slipped out time after time landing on my ass, knees and elbows, whilst cursing the ice gods in very colourful language. Ice still makes me tense up and I don’t enjoy riding on it which can make some of those cold weeks in January rather unpleasant.

Ditto gravel skiing, when the mountain opens and there’s not enough snow, or the snow all melts away before we’re ready to leave and you spend all your time dodging stones and rocks, patches of grass and mud but your equipment pays the price anyway. Nope snow gods, keep your ice, keep your rocks and, if you won’t send me fresh powder, I’ll take the next best thing, slush, the poor girl's powder!

I didn’t make that up, I swear people do call it "the poor man's powder". Slush skiing can give you almost the same feeling as riding powder because you tackle it the same way. Rather than keeping on your edges and carving turns into the snow, you ride flat with your weight leaning backwards and the nose of your board or skis picked up to avoid digging them into the slush. This gives you that same cruisy, almost weightless feeling which, on a board especially, is similar to the sensation of surfing. Slush is also extremely forgiving, other than the fact that you’re going to get soggy, falling in slush is a whole lot nicer than falling on ice. So make the most of these friendly conditions and practice those tricks you’ve been putting off all season, ride switch, hit up the park, get your jib on and then tell me you don’t love the slush!

If, in fact, you don’t – and I supposed there must be some exceptions out there – then fear not, get yourselves up high to the Roche De Mio and the glacier. You’ll have to negotiate the wet stuff to get there and back but conditions up top are still sweet. The glacier has a snow depth of 225cm and it is holding up nicely under this tropical sunshine.

And, actually, if you’re not too jazzed about the sunshine fear not either, the clouds are coming back. Not in great force but they’re certainly reappearing on the forecast with even a little fluttering of snow set to fall on Saturday and maybe another on Sunday and maybe even again on Wednesday. We may have been pre-emptive in ditching our buffs for sunscreen so I’d suggest keeping both nearby over the next few days as we could be in for a mixed bag of sun and clouds.

Whatever the weather, enjoy the sun, relish the new snow but make sure you’re getting out in it! Seriously people, the clock on this season is going to start winding down quickly now so get on out there and make the most of the mountain, slush or no slush.