Best season start in Meribel for years

Not many pistes were open this first day of the season due to the top lifts being closed for avalanche safety work. However, you don’t need many pistes on your first day back on skis. I’m far too busy grinning like the Cheshire cat, admiring the landscape, and trying to remember how to steer the long planky things attached to my feet to worry about skiing the same piste more than once.

Although visibility was limited, skiing was a joy as the fresh snow was beautifully soft and perfectly groomed. All except for Aigle into Mottaret centre. “After all this fresh snow, Aigle should be fine”, I confidently asserted as we set out down this steep red run and found it icy for most of its length. It’s a mystery how this run can be scraped hard one the first day of the season when nobody has been down it and snow has been dumping non-stop. Oh well, I’ll remember to take the gentler blue Chardonneret run next time instead.

We skied to Méribel’s new (and still unopened) lift, the high-speed Roc de Fer chairlift which has replaced the two elderly and steep draglifts of the same name. I’m very fond of the two runs served by this lift, Bartavelle and Lagopède, and no doubt more people will now discover how good the snow is in this part of the valley.

Draglifts are now becoming quite scarce in Méribel as they have gradually been replaced by high-speed, high capacity chairlifts. Perhaps Méribel should decide to keep one draglift running forever, just to remind us how very fast and comfortable modern lifts are in comparison…

The weather forecast shows more snowfalls every day for the next week, so conditions should be fabulous for the Christmas holidays this year. What a massive (and massively welcome) change from this time last year, when the Alps were mostly snowless and brown.