La Rosiere Local Conditions 04/02/2012

With no guests in for a couple of days I organised to get out early and take a tour up our local peak Mont Valezan. It was bitterly cold with freezing cloud lingering around 1800 - 2000m. The walk up was not so cold as long as you were in the sun.
It was a real lesson in the different types of snow and the local conditions at the moment. A few days ago we had a lot of wind coming through the Petit St Bernard pass. It has changed the off piste skiing in La Rosiere dramatically. The powder snow has all been blown off leaving a very unpleasent rough surface. The accumilations of wind blown snow have built up in lots of localised slabs.  The story on the La Thuile side is a lot better with a very welcome 15cm - 20cm of fresh snow, giving some great powder skiing. You just need to remember where the thin areas are so as not to damage your skis.
The walk up the ridge from the Traversette lift was straight forward. The only problem being the 5 cm of wind blown snow sliding on the hard layer underneath. We ended up using ski crampons so as not to burn too much energy slipping around.  
At the top it was perfect - cold, clear skis and no wind, it was a privelage to be there. But it was not the views we had come for but to ski the north face which we were hoping would have benefited from the fresh snow. Unfortunately as I traversed into the top face a good 10cm of wind blown slab released. It became very obvious that what had looked like great powder was slab, it did not take long to decide to turn back before we were over commited. The route down is not that well filled in and a loss of footing could have been very nasty. The south bowl provided a few nice turns before the snow deteriorated and we traversed back to the slopes - easier said than done.
The skiing in the Espace San Bernardo has been turned on its head with the great snow in La Rosiere being badly damaged by the wind and the poor snow cover of La Thuile now providing the best off piste with the new snow. The wind blown slabs are a worry for the next snowfall as they do not appear to be very well bonded.