A selection of stories of life in Serre Chevalier and beyond in April 2025
Read the April 2025 ski blog from Serre Chevalier as we ski the pistes, skate the cross-country, ski off-piste and ski-tour away from the resort and ski slack-country in resort
April 15th
Since my last post the weather has not been as bad as expected in that we’ve been able to get out in prolonged dry spells and have even had some glimpses of sunshine, though not enough to tempt us to go up to Monetier to ski.
So we’ve been running up in the forest behind us, even taking one of the Jacks with us as it’s a lot cooler than recently, and there are a fair few streams up there.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned it before but one of the old houses up there has a number of golf greens, which is all a bit bizarre.
Yesterday was my third consecutive run up there, along with the OH and Ullr, normally if he shoots off after a beastie he eventually comes back, and we can see that via his GPS tracker and using a dog whistle he comes back fairly quickly, but yesterday we could see him coming back as per normal and then just as we could physically see him this deer broke cover above us and that was him off again, this happened once more and we could see in the forest there was some time of feeding station with some old hay, but he’s never had the scent there before and acted like that?
From April 15th up to June 15th all dogs are required to be on a leash, to protect young wildlife, though there is no mention of cats, who love to terrorise our birdies!
So will be interesting to see what everyone does in the fields below us in the valley where everyone lets their dogs off. I suspect the best course of action is keep them on the lead until you’re well away from where the Police Municipal might possibly be out on their one outing when they feel they have to go and do a control to tick a box on a form etc even then we’ll only get a warning, hopefully, but will be sods law to encounter them:?
As for the inbound snow forecast, looking at the webcams there is circa 5cm on the BBQ platform atop Cucumelle and the colder snap with more snow is over the next 48hrs and can see a fresh dusting up at Bachas and looks like the weather has cleared a little, so could be tempted, but think I’ll wait it out.
Certainly, the forecast is somewhat unsettled and hopefully, we’ll get some decent touring conditions once things settle down.
And should also add, that best to still ski early as what fresh snow is up there will very quickly get heavy as temps rise.
April 13th
Last day of the season here in our sector of Serre Chevalier; Monetier has a further week, but alas, the weather is grim for today and nigh on all next week, though there is some clutching of straws in that we may well see snow at altitude mid-week, and then on into next week could be Janvril, but that’s way too far off to be sure.
So, I think we’re definitely passing on going up the hill this morning for a last ski here using the lifts, and we enjoyed a visit to the Chaz yesterday in much better weather than expected with friends, and then later took my daughter to Turin after a stopover for pizza in Claviere.
So will probably take Multley and one of the Jacks for a run up behind us, as it’s so steep on the up and down we’re nigh on walking anyway, and dank weather doesn’t matter.
The past week the weather was glorious, though it did take its toll on the pistes and the Luc was looking very shabby indeed and Le Bez was closed.
However the ski-touring was superb, and early starts were required.
Had one great tour up in the Gardiole sector with my daughter and OH along with Ullr and it was so good that I went back up there again with @KenX the next day and even earlier, but minus Ullr as he was knackered after chasing so many marmots the day before and showed no willingness to want to come out.
I wanted to explore further off the back of the Gardiole than usual, and we could not quite believe what we ended up doing, knowing we would have to skin back up again, but the descent we achieved for a relatively small climb back up was fantastic with super untracked Spring snow, and once back I spent quite a while looking at 3D mapping etc to suss an even better descent, but not too sure when we’ll get to do that?
Whilst we were doing that, OH and daughter were skiing off the back doing a couple of descents/ascents etc
So some great footage of Mutley giving chase at various times and daughter skiing the spring snow really well with the pistes of Serre Che in the background, but there again snow like that makes everyone feel like a Goddess 🙂
Should add that in the video you can hear me talking to the OH who is quite far off, and that’s because we’re using the Cardo Packtalk which is great when we’re touring with the dog/daughter etc and in off-piste terrain as I will ski ahead and check out a line and then say follow me or not etc.
Headlong now towards the final week(s) of the season.
The last four or five days have been very warm/hot, with temps on the terrace reaching +20’s and the pistes very slushy by 11:00, but without the hordes they’re quite fun to ski without the great bumps of slush, and as I think I’ve mentioned before the kids don’t really notice the slush, and one friend’s 8yr old daughter was saying how the conditions were great fun, and even more so when a frog (the amphibian variety) hopped across the piste in front of her.
OH and daughter went up to the Chalet Serre Blanc yesterday as it was the last day of the Prorel sector, everything was 50% off there.
Our last week of the lifts here, and we close next Sunday and then Monetier stays open for another week. Interestingly, the weather looks like a major change towards the weekend and into next week.
Still a lot of Brits around for the Easter holidays and I suspect they will be making up the majority of skiers on the hill this week, but we’re talking very few.
As ever more restos had their final day open yesterday, that said, we have a big thrash at the Cabanne tomorrow.
Had a massive 9-hour day touring in the Ecrins in the heat on Saturday, and I was toast, more about that here.
Yesterday, still with very tired legs I drove and left the van just below the Chambran valley, up from Pelvoux, and then rode the e-mtb back as did not have the leg strength for the road bike 🙂
The plan is to then take my daughter off the back and ski all the way down with just over a 2km walk along the valley floor back to the van; I think I’m more nervous about it than my daughter & OH as it gets quite gnarly before the final pitch (2nd image above) and we’ll have to take that easy as well as waiting for the snow to transform more, which shouldn’t be too difficult with all the photos and vids she likes taking 🙂
And last week also had a superb tour up the Gardiole where we had 5cm+ of unexpected fresh snow, more about that here
2nd April
The season is very much drawing to a close now, and it seems that the only people on the slopes mid-week are Brit school children in massive long snakes (counted 14) following their instructors down the piste 🙂
Sunday was a very social day, piste skiing and a coffee stop in the morning and then a good BBQ just above the French Resto on the purpose-built BBQ area, where you can bring your supplies along and cook FOC on the purpose-built electric BBQ there.
Then it was back down the hill for a very amusing couple of hours sitting outside the Grotte watching skiers and boarders coming down the Mickey and then trying to scoot across 10m of water with often hilarious results, along with a really good party vibe, in fact we all said it was just like ye olde pre Covid days when the Grotte was the place to chill in Spring Apres Ski.
Snow still holding up well though very soft by Noon, that said we had an excellent ski down a nigh on deserted Vallons circa 13:30 after some excellent slack-country where the snow had cooked well, far better than the day before when we were up around the Gardiole and even though the temps were in double figs the chill wind kept the snow hard.
Today is a grey dismal day and we might see a few cms at altitude.
The forecast is looking very warm and sunny, so we’ll take one day at a time.
For many geezonaires that only ski in resort most are going back end of this week, but it looks hopefully like touring should be good for a good few weeks as long as the nights are not too mild.
La Grave is now open, and that’s always an option should we get rain in the valley here, and the Derby is the backend of this week, and at altitude, they should maybe see 5- 10 cms fresh?
A couple of pics from yesterday.
Skiing the final pitch down to the Chambran Valley floor, snow was still hard as it is predominately West facing, but should still be good next week later on in the day.
You can actually see how the snow-pack is showing signs of a freeze/melt cycle going on. Above my mate there is 450m of perfect W facing snow waiting to transform at the right time and it’s superb terrain.
