Everything in that blog post remains true. The weather can make or break your splitboard trip or splitboard course which isn’t ideal, especially if its the only one you’ll get to go on that winter. This is why we are (and will always be) supremely mobile as an splitboard guiding company. In fact we’re the only professional splitboard guiding crew who does this and it really does make us unique in that respect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This ability to move combined with our ethos of staying flexible was the key, enabling us to deliver top tier splitboard experiences for our clients here in the Alps during the 2023 winter season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a difficult start.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\nM\u00e9teo France reported that 2022 had ended with some of the warmest weather ever recorded in France, but even 17 years ago (when we started out here) it always tended to rain a little over the festive period, but nothing of too much consequence. This time it was very different, biblical levels of rain fell below 2000m turning pistes into water parks and dislodging chairlift pylons due to rain induced subsidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Portes Du Soleil area Morzine and Les Gets were especially badly hit and a lot of the smaller Swiss resorts closed. In contrast Chatel managed to ride out the worst of it and (due to herculean efforts of the piste teams here) remained open throughout the season with only a few pistes closed, mainly in the Super Chatel area. The downside is that it became phenomenally busy both here and in Avoriaz with both recreational skiers and ski schools from other parts of France and Switzerland arriving, as it was the only place left worth skiing in, locally. This led to horribly busy conditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Chatel](\"https:\/\/theridersocial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG-20221229-WA0000-768x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMany resorts didn’t recover from this setback and sadly closed down their operations early, which was not only financially disastrous for them but for many of the people helping to service the winter sports industry in resort. We arguably reached a tipping point in winter conditions a while back now and many lower resorts may well face challenging times trying to navigate what might happen in years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How the mass winter tourism model changes due to climate breakdown<\/a> and how the industry manages to adapt remains to be seen – building lifts to 4000m and \/ or increasing the amount of un-eco snow making facilities across resorts isn’t the way forward in our opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt is likely that many recreational skiers will now wait until the last moment to book their winter ski trip which makes solid planning for businesses almost impossible. Our agility as a splitboard guiding outfit means we can get you to the best snow when you come on a splitboard trip with us but if you’ve only booked a week long stay in Sestriere, Italy for example then you get what you get. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you wanted some more doom and gloom, The Guardian published an interactive comparison map<\/a> which shows the difference between the 21\/22 season and the 22\/23 winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n(Props to The Guardian<\/a> for reporting factually on the situation. A big majority of the UK press resorted to lazy journalistic practises (i.e. none skiers or snowboarders recycling Twitter news) and basically saying that there was no snow, anywhere. There was, in our resort at least just not too much anywhere else below 2000m)<\/p>\n\n\n\nThat said, Italy had their best snow coverage for a while last season. During both the 20\/21 & 21\/22 winter seasons there wasn’t very much there at all, in fact 2023 saw us return to Italy for the first time since 2019! This article from HUCK <\/strong><\/a>magazine on the impact of tourism on Italian mountains is an interesting read.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo it wasn’t great anywhere at the start of the winter. Here’s a picture taken on January 1st 2023. It looks over Lac Leman in Switzerland to the Jura range. Not exactly wintery looking eh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theridersocial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have had bad starts to the season before, its not a totally new phenomena, and we knew that it would snow again. With the passing of the new moon, we entered a new meteo phase that saw colder temps and light snowfall arrive from around the 10th January 2023. Here’s a picture from our back window, taken on the 10th at an altitude of 850m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Snow](\"https:\/\/theridersocial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/20230115_164611-01-670x1024.jpeg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By January 12th 2023 we were back on with conditions here in Chatel, at least. A lot of snow fell quickly but on to a very wet snowpack which meant avalanche conditions were quickly prevalent. After not having ridden any interesting terrain since early December there is always a temptation to go out and ski everything possible. Not a great idea, we saw social media posts from Morzine FB groups re local Brits who got caught out. Thankfully they survived. We stuck to safe and fun, low angle pow laps instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Riding low angle terrain during high avalanche risk conditions here in Chatel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nMany resorts didn’t recover from this setback and sadly closed down their operations early, which was not only financially disastrous for them but for many of the people helping to service the winter sports industry in resort. We arguably reached a tipping point in winter conditions a while back now and many lower resorts may well face challenging times trying to navigate what might happen in years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How the mass winter tourism model changes due to climate breakdown<\/a> and how the industry manages to adapt remains to be seen – building lifts to 4000m and \/ or increasing the amount of un-eco snow making facilities across resorts isn’t the way forward in our opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is likely that many recreational skiers will now wait until the last moment to book their winter ski trip which makes solid planning for businesses almost impossible. Our agility as a splitboard guiding outfit means we can get you to the best snow when you come on a splitboard trip with us but if you’ve only booked a week long stay in Sestriere, Italy for example then you get what you get. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you wanted some more doom and gloom, The Guardian published an interactive comparison map<\/a> which shows the difference between the 21\/22 season and the 22\/23 winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n (Props to The Guardian<\/a> for reporting factually on the situation. A big majority of the UK press resorted to lazy journalistic practises (i.e. none skiers or snowboarders recycling Twitter news) and basically saying that there was no snow, anywhere. There was, in our resort at least just not too much anywhere else below 2000m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, Italy had their best snow coverage for a while last season. During both the 20\/21 & 21\/22 winter seasons there wasn’t very much there at all, in fact 2023 saw us return to Italy for the first time since 2019! This article from HUCK <\/strong><\/a>magazine on the impact of tourism on Italian mountains is an interesting read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So it wasn’t great anywhere at the start of the winter. Here’s a picture taken on January 1st 2023. It looks over Lac Leman in Switzerland to the Jura range. Not exactly wintery looking eh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n We have had bad starts to the season before, its not a totally new phenomena, and we knew that it would snow again. With the passing of the new moon, we entered a new meteo phase that saw colder temps and light snowfall arrive from around the 10th January 2023. Here’s a picture from our back window, taken on the 10th at an altitude of 850m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n By January 12th 2023 we were back on with conditions here in Chatel, at least. A lot of snow fell quickly but on to a very wet snowpack which meant avalanche conditions were quickly prevalent. After not having ridden any interesting terrain since early December there is always a temptation to go out and ski everything possible. Not a great idea, we saw social media posts from Morzine FB groups re local Brits who got caught out. Thankfully they survived. We stuck to safe and fun, low angle pow laps instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riding low angle terrain during high avalanche risk conditions here in Chatel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n