Skiing

Once you get to Moutiers there are options to get to all of the three valleys via the regular and cheap public bus service which is located right outside of the train station entrance.
St-Gervai-les-Bains also has a train station with a number of locally accessible resorts including Megeve and you can get the train further to chamonix.
Here is a travel page that may help https://www.chamonix.net/english/travel/uk/train

If you get off at Aime, before Bourg St M, there are buses up to all the 3 Valleys resorts

Having re read its seems it’s moutiers for the three valleys by bus. You wouldn’t have thought I’ve used this route for the last few years.

The joy of old age. I think BSM more for Tigne/Val and La Rosiere. There is always Sainte Foy as well but that will be blinkin' pricey

Thanks, all! Managed to find cheap accommodation in Samoëns. Fingers crossed for snow

It’s a lovely village, I was there last year. It’s great to look at the sign for the Joux Plain and know you’re not riding up it. I found an early start the quicker way to get across the Flaine. A couple of the connecting lifts can get pretty busy after 9.30.

Apologies for the spam but I'm giving away a pair of old women's skis if anyone fancies them...

K2 MissDemeanor Women's Skis - 2008 - 169cm
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/382653/#comment16812895

Skiline had deals for apartments which included eurostar from euston, and ski passes and were under £500. No idea what the ski passes were (i.e. full area or not) but would be worth a look. https://www.skiline.co.uk/ski-holidays/eurostar-train

There is a bubble goes up from brides les bains to meribel as well, another option. Seem to remember there being a pub or two that had a bit of an apres vibe in brides as some of the instructors and workers live down there.

Aime could be an option for la plagne but the bus would be a pain (IMO) and probably not much of a saving when you add it up and include time wasted.

We’ve just arrived in Andorra (Soldeu) for the next 4 months. Stunning weather, no snow.

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Bleak. Is that at 1700m?

More or less 1850m.

That’s Andorra’s highest peak on the right. Almost bare too. It was 16 degrees today!

How’s Catalonia?

Bleak.

Top of Bonaigua at 2070

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Friends in the three valleys say skiing very difficult. I’m there are the end of the month. It’s due to snow all next week but the temperatures are a little too warm for my liking.

Really starting to bring it home. Definitely sharpened my own thoughts on living more responsibly. Hard to see how how the earth is going to be the same in 5 years, let alone 50!

On the snow chat.

My OH gifted me a long weekend in Pradollano, Sierra Nevada in Feb. It'll be our first ski trip as a family (well boarding for me).

They flagged that there were reports of bad snow in Europe and we wondered if it'd be better to postpone to next year.

Our kids are 2 and 4, so we'd get the older on skis and let the little one play (probably).

Anyone got any knowledge of the Sierra Nevada? Google says Feb is the coldest month there and this is the webcam:
https://www.skiresort.info/ski-resort/sierra-nevada-pradollano/webcams/

Veleta is the highest bit of mountain from the resort at ~3,400m

next year?! er, yeah, maybe the climate catastrophe will be reversed by then! lol at ppl having their awareness of climate change sharpened by the way it threatens their ski holidays >>> golf club thread
edit. never written anything so cheeky here before

We spent a few months in the Alps this summer and it was an absolute horror show. Absolutely unprecedented melting of glaciers, permafrost and collapsing rock structures. There's a real sense that mountain sports are changing forever.

One of the glaciers we cut our teeth on a decade ago lost 45m in length and four meters in thickness just while we were there.

Local legend says that hot summers are followed by big snows. Sadly not.

On the plus side, wolves, bears and lynxes are loving the longer hunting season. Although I'm sure that will have a negative knock-on effect somehow.

Yeh have fun being anything winter adapted like a mountain hare that turns white for the winter, with no snow you become a very obvious target on the landscape for predators. A lot of populations of mountain adapted flora and fauna are running out altitude to move higher to, so yeh, winners and losers.

Good time to be a glacial archaeologist too.

We found a one hundred year old ski pole in the rubble from a glacier that disappeared about 15 years ago (currently at university of Innsbruck for catalogueing) and a 100+ year old ice axe melted out of langtalferner in the Otztal.

My favourite find was an unopened cam of coke from the barcelona Olympics although that was a few years ago now.

I think the glacier retreated from Barcelona more than a few years ago

It’s a fun place for a few days and it’s really cool being able to look across the med to Africa from the top.

When people talk about bad snow “in Europe” they generally mean the alps and to a lesser extent, the pyrenees. Southern Spain will have very different weather patterns to further north and I think their snow has this season so far has been fine up high. Half term is a long time away, I reckon you’ll be fine.

Cheers.

That was my feeling. But my OH was worried it'd be a bit shit for me and disappointing for the kids - especially when next year the younger will be out of nappies and would be able to get more involved.

The other option is my mates were talking about an ad hoc last min trip, but I worry about the difference in our budgets and my ability to take time off at short notice compared to them.

Anyone got a discount code for ski hire at sport2000? The snow23 code has expired.

Anyone been to the Alps over the last few weeks? Hoping that things will get better before my trip to val d'isere first weekend of March. Doubt I'll bother bringing my off piste kit though