Bluebird Powder Skiing In Serre Chevalier At Its Best

When it comes to skiing powder in resort it doesn't get much better than yesterday, the opening day for the resort in Serre Chevalier. In fact, it doesn't get much better anywhere and we're talking JapPow and Colorado Champagne Powder.

Unlike the former, Japan, we didn't have to climb up for it and neither did we have to 'press glass' as in queue at the gondola from 8am paying an Earlybird lift price, as in Colorado.

OK so it wasn't blow pow but the fresh 50cms of snow was completely untracked sidecountry for 11 laps from two drags - even though Gav, Ken and I didn't set off up the gondola until 10.30am.

It was a bluebird day with sun from the get go but we decided not to partake in that first lift powder frenzy following the snow taps being turned on the day before and it being the opening day for the resort. Instead we went full touring kit with skins in our avy bags so we could access areas that the resort powder hounds couldn't reach.

But we never got the skins out. The fact that the resort did not prepare the whole resort area and, therefore, kept closed some of the higher access lifts, was bad news for weekenders and a contentious issue for seasonaires now paying over €1000 for a winter's pass.

However, for us, it was like Christmas came early. As the Gauthier lift wasn't open, no one was coming across from the other valleys and the Frejus gondola was empty so we had totally untracked to ourselves until our legs gave up after two and a half hours of lapping the drags.