Meribel Snow Report: 23rd March 2012

Spring has officially started and, as if on command, the weather has turned spring-like. The sun is shining, birds are singing, the temperature reached 18C at 1000m yesterday, and the fresh snow that fell on Monday in the resort is melting fast. The sunnier slopes are inevitably turning back into spring snow.

The trick with spring snow is to get the timing and slope aspect just right. If you manage this, then you can ski all day on snow that is just developing a beautiful thin film of slush on a hard base. Get it wrong and you spend all day on too hard or too slushy slopes. It’s usually best to set out on the slopes which face the sun in the early part of the morning, then move onto the north-facing slopes as the day warms up.

Yesterday I set out at 10am and already the Face piste on the Tougnete side of the valley was turning sticky and slushy. Clearly it was time to head to higher, north-facing slopes. When Méribel is slushy, the place to go is Val Tho. The high, north-facing slopes in this valley usually keep dry and cold snow on them for much longer than Méribel’s sunnier pistes, so this is usually a good bet on warm days in March and April.

The snow was indeed colder in Val Thorens, but the wind was howling. A south-easterly Foehn wind was blowing and, as usual, it was affecting Val Thorens much more than Méribel. After a few windy runs and blustery chairlifts, we decided to return to the Méribel valley and try the north-facing off-piste areas by Lac de la chambre and under the Cote Brune chairlift. Here we found the best snow of the day: lovely, chalky snow on medium-sized moguls.

Next week the weather is forecast to remain warm and spring-like. The good news is the snow will remain firm for longer thanks to the clocks going forward on Sunday morning.

On my last run down into the resort, I went to say “adieu” to an old friend. The tranquil little Choucas Restaurant under the Saulire I gondola, is about to close its doors for the last time on Wednesday. Over the summer, it will be rebuilt, trebling in size, with a vast new terrace added. By the start of next winter it will re-open – as La Folie Douce restaurant and club.

Now, if you don’t know what La Folie Douce is, you’ve never been to either Val d’Isere or Val Thorens. Each resort has one massively popular restaurant/club of this name on the slopes. La Folie Douce offers funky, modern design; excellent food at the Fruitière restaurant and dancing on the terrace to DJs or singers. On sunny days, the terrace of the Val Thorens Folie Douce is packed and the hundreds of other people who can’t get on the terrace are dancing on the snow below. It’s a hugely successful concept and it’s coming to Méribel next winter.

The Choucas restaurant site is almost perfect for the new club; it is close to the main piste running back to the resort and gets plenty of afternoon sunshine. One possible problem will be the relative difficulty of the red run Cerf leading back to the resort. Clubbers who have had a skinful will find this difficult to negotiate. The pisteurs may have to work overtime.

Personally, I think it will be great for Méribel to have another après-ski spot – but what about the noise? The Val Thorens Folie Douce music can be heard from hundreds of metres away, and not everybody wants to hear thumping Europop while they are enjoying the beauties of the Alps. What do you think? Will La Folie Douces spoil the mountain or be a brilliant addition to Méribel’s après-ski? Please leave your comments below!