September snow in Avoriaz!

This year autumn just hasn’t shown up in the French alps. One minute it was a 30+ degree heatwave here in Morzine and we were obliged to continuously throw ourselves in Lac Montriond to cool down, and then overnight the weather changed with a sudden drop in temperature and what feels like non-stop rain in the valley ever since.

On 2nd September we saw the first snow on the peaks around the Portes du Soleil and they have stayed continuously white since then. The snow line has been slowly creeping lower and lower and last night made it as low as 1600 metres. Now for mid September that’s pretty unusual, more in character with this time of year would be an indian summer of 25 degrees.

The leaves are still green, they’ve not even changed colour yet!

This morning (18th September 2017) we popped up to see the snow in Avoriaz, which is at an altitude of 1800 m. There’s nothing better than those first crunchy footsteps through the snow each winter, along with a first snowball or two. We almost didn’t make it with the amount of snow on the roads and clearly no snow tyres on the car yet.

Summer has barely left us and some of us are still wearing shorts!

The snow is pretty deep in places

Once in Avoriaz, there was a solitary snow clearer trying to get the roads cleared for people to get to work and kids to get to school.

We’re pretty certain it’s not often that the kids in Avoriaz get to enjoy the walk to school in the snow in September… Let alone sledge to school at this time of year!

Feels like winter with all this snow in Avoriaz, but it’s still 88 days until the lifts open!

It was a total whiteout in Avoriaz so views were pretty limited! The photo below is looking up to the Chapelle snowpark area!

As excited as we are to see such early snow in the French alps, it is too early for it to stick around until winter. That doesn’t mean our fingers aren’t crossed for a winter of epic snowfall ?