Absolute Alps Holidays Ski Blog

Nowadays there is great pressure on everyone from individuals to companies to carry out their business in as eco-friendly way as possible, and the mountain ski resort of Chatel is doing its part to try to keep its environment as healthy as possible.

Chatel has signed up to the Sustainable Development Charter to commit to making sustainable development their central organising principle, which has produced the following initiatives.
Read the rest of this entry »

After a couple of weeks hard work I’m pleased to reveal the new look for the Absolute Alps website. A little sad to see the old site retired as it has served us well for the past 7 years, but it was time to freshen up the image.

Here’s to another great 7 years

It hasn’t snowed for over a week now and the sun has been shining in Chatel for most of the time, maybe spring has arrived again. We had a taster of spring back in March but winter definitely made a sustained comeback in April.

Snow tires and ski rack are off the car now, bring on the sunshine. Although forecasting rain coming for the rest of the week, at least it might wash some of the snow away in preparation for the summer biking season.

The ski lifts closed in the Portes du Soleil on Sunday, which is an absolute shame because the mountain is still fully loaded with snow. On the final day we where treated to 30 cms of fresh powder and sunny skies. For the past 2 weeks it has been powder skiing almost every day, it has snowed most nights and then had sunny spells during the daytime.

As I mentioned in my previous post it’s been an excellent season, there will be a many people who will remember this year for their superb ski holidays.

It’s still snowing today down to the resort level, at this rate its going to be a quite a while until the mountain is suitable for mountain biking and I expect it will be a very muddy start to the summer biking season.

All in all it’s been a very good ski season in Chatel and the Portes du Soleil, late season has been fun too with a mix of conditions.

The start of March was really warm with fantastic spring skiing to be had on the off piste after it have softened in the sun, then mid-month we were treated to an unpredicted 40cms of fresh powder for a few days. I always love it when the forecast says a maximum of 10cms and you wake up in the morning to over a foot of fresh snow.  A couple of the best days skiing of the season.

More sunshine for the end of March, before a slightly disappointing rainy first week of April. Although the rain did mainly come in the night so although the slopes where slushy in the daytime at least there wasn’t too much skiing in the rain.

But we’ve had a little bit of snow since and the pistes are in great shape again, plus a fair bit of snow forecast in the next few days.  So we’ll see what turns up but there’s still potential for a last bit of fresh powder this season.

A bit of a scorching week on the slopes this week, with temperatures reaching 26°C in the village. It’s amazing the amount of snow that has melted around the chalet this week, probably about a foot of snow has melted away from the garden.

Still loads of snow on the mountain from the massive falls earlier in the season, and it forecast to cool down again next week with a little snowfall to refresh the pistes.

It’s been a busy last couple of weeks in the resort with all the school holidays, should be a little quieter for the next few weeks before busy again at the end of March for Easter.

The Siberian super cold air has finally gone and conditions are fantastic on the mountain now with lots of sun and deep deep snow everywhere.

It’s been a real pleasure to go out in sunny and relativity warm conditions (compared to the previous 3 weeks), the pistes are all in excellent shape and the off-piste is good fun too.

This February has not been as busy as previous years, the main UK school holidays were last week and it was a long way off as busy as usual. The main car parks at Pre-la-Joux have not been totally rammed which is usually the case in school holidays. Defiantly a sign of people being careful with their money.

Not much snow forecast for the coming week so time to get the sun cream out and enjoy the snow.

We still have a few spaces left for late March and April, get in touch for get some great ski deals

If the forecasts are correct we should finally be getting a change in the weather from tomorrow with temperatures staying above -10°C for the rest of the week, which will be a very welcome change.

I have been advising our guests for the last couple of weeks to wear all the ski clothing they have brought with them, 2 pairs if thermals / glove liners / extra fleece and nobody has complained about being too warm !  A few days when the wind was blowing it bitter cold on the mountain, trying to keep fingers and toes warm was a real struggle.

The pistes are all super smooth and even the off-piste has stayed very skiable with the cold temperatures.

Anyone driving a diesel fuel vehicles in the mountains needs to be careful in these super cold temperatures as the fuel becomes waxy and can easily cause the vehicle to stop. A top tip is to fill your tank with local diesel from the highest filling station on the mountain, they will add more additives to the fuel to ensure it continues to work as expected as temperatures get very low.

We have had a coldest temperatures I have ever seen in Chatel, yesterday morning the temperature at the chalet was -23°C.  We only just made it down to Geneva airport because the diesel was starting to freeze in the tank.

Out on the ski slopes the snow is in excellent condition but the wind chill is rather painful on the ski lifts at the top of the mountain.

We where treated to super fluffy powder last week which stayed in amazing condition for several days due to the very low temperatures.

I have been skiing in the most clothes I have even worn out on the mountain and only just been warm enough.

We were treated to 10 days of clear blue skies and sunshine over the last couple of weeks, lots of sunshine but very cold most nights and not really warming up in the daytime.

Was great skiing while being able to see the Alps in their snowy winter blanket.

The weather changed back to snowy / cloudy / sunny spells at the end of last week, currently the trees up the mountain are still frozen white.

Forecast looking like cold / cloudy / some snowfall over the next week or so, just time to enjoy the last week of quiet January skiing before the kids & crowds return in February.