Season Diary - Day 18

Henry

3 days ago2 min read

Wednesday 29 January, 2025 – La Clusaz, France

I love this resort. I’ve written about La Clusaz so many times in the past – this is my 13th day skiing here across three visits in the last three years – but I’ve always been skiing the same three runs and the same three lifts; search is the curse of the Ski Test.

But there is one thing that I never ever, and will never ever get tired of, and that is the scenery available here. It is quite simply stunning.

Let’s start from the top. The top of the La Balme sector looks out, directly, on to Mont Blanc. Not quite directly as it lies around 30km away, but it is so clear and feels so close that you can almost reach out and touch it. My camera roll is full of pictures of Western Europe’s highest point, framed against a perfectly blue background, with the sun shining down from on high.

So lost have I been in this image that it has taken me until now to notice the details elsewhere in the frame. Yes, of course there are the other towering mountains of the Mont Blanc massif, the “thumb” off to the far right being by far the most obvious and unique.

But this year I actually looked down into the valley below. Turns out you can see St Gervais, the town at the foot of the Chamonix Valley and the heart of one of France’s biggest ski areas. The lifts are visible, too, the start of a ski area that stretches for 400km around the southwestern foot of Mont Blanc.

How cool is that? You can look 25km away into the distance and see this network of trees, pistes, lifts and buildings?!

But what about the other way? The other way is somehow almost more special. The view to the North and West is of some of the first hills and mountains of the French Alps, rising up from the Rhone Valley near Lyon.

You can see where they actually end, the flat land beyond disappearing off into the distance and over the horizon. La Clusaz is framed by a ring of mountains that you have to pass through via a narrow gap to access the long Aravis valley, and these mountains mark the first mountains proper of the Alps.

That means that there is a constantly changing weather system in the area. You’ll be standing at the top of the La Balme sector, taking in the views, when all of a sudden a whisp of cloud will emerge from behind a rock and flow over you, or frame the hills in the distance.

Cloud inversions happen in a heartbeat as warm air flowing up from the Rhone Valley is channelled through the gap in the hills and sent upwards by the changing elevation, the moisture in them turning to cloud before they’ve even thought about climbing the Col de la Colombiere.

And, when the snow comes, the endless forests will be bathed in white, creating a picture postcard scene.

Every run I do here, even though the skiing is the same, is breathtaking; a reminder, perhaps, to always look up and take in the amazing views we have around us when skiing.