It’s Looking Good In The Alps
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Although the world’s attention will be focussed on Vancouver and British Columbia for the next fortnight, snow conditions are currently excellent in the Alps, and indeed in other Western European mountain areas including the Dolomites and Pyrenees.
Most resorts in Andorra, Austria, France, Italy and Switzerland have reported between 30 and 90cm (1-3 feet) of new snow in the past week giving many a healthy base depth now of 1.5 – 2.1m (5-7 feet). Chamonix currently claims the deepest snow in Europe with 4 metres (over 13 feet) according to snow reporting agency www.skiinfo.co.uk.
Other countries which British companies organise holidays to, like Bulgaria, Norway and Sweden, have also reported new snow – if not in the big volumes of the Alps – but still enough to make conditions good at the top resorts there too.
The widely trailed reduction in capacity this winter, coupled with the busy half-term period, means that good deals in Europe are quite hard to find over the next four weeks, with most special offers now concentrating on the mid-March period, before Easter, which is also reported by tour operators to be getting booked up fast.
However there’s always availability to be found somewhere, and ironically some of the best deals of recent weeks have been to North American resorts, outside the Olympic zone.
