Season Diary - Day 20

Sunday 19th April 2026 - Les Arcs, France

A first time in Les Arcs, and a return to spring skiing magic …

---

Spring skiing is weird.

Not bad, mind.

Just weird.

First of all, it’s late April. I thought my skiing was long done, the gear packed away never to be seen until the end of November when I begin prepping for winter anew.

I’ve been hiking, spent afternoons in the sun in the park, chilled out in beer gardens and just generally enjoyed spring in London as it edges towards summer.

And yet, here I am. Back on snow. Digging the ski gear out of the cupboard and the ski boots out from under the bed, schlepping my way to airports and train stations at some ungodly hour.

Believe it or not, there is still plenty of snow out in the Alps right now. The best, of course, is to be found up high; something that is driven home by the bright green Tarentaise Valley filling our vista from the bowl of the resort.

We’re staying at the UCPA centre at Arcs 1600, one of the lower of the several villages that form Les Arcs. The snow is just, just hanging on down here, with the home run back to the centre pretty much the only skiing here.

But getting up to good snow above 2000m is simple enough, pottering down to the lift and up and over to the bowl above Arc 1950 and Arc 2000. On the Arc 1800 side, the snow is there, but it is getting slushier and slushier by the day. And don’t even mention off piste: there simply isn’t any.

Alas, let’s be honest; you don’t come skiing in mid-to-late April for good snow. But you do come for fun, and that, after all, is why we’re here.

Spring snow is fun to ski. It’s not powder, it’s not corduroy, it is, in fact, mostly slush. But it is its own thing, its own fun, its own challenge. Pistes don’t retain their shape for long, so quickly you’re skiing through crud and embryonic moguls from mid-morning. It can be slow, too, sticking to the bottom of your skis and bringing you to a screeching halt in the middle of a run.

All this makes it a unique challenge, one to adjust your balance, your edge control, your pivoting to. Sometimes you have to ski it like powder, skis closer together and weight more balance, trying to float over the top of the snow; at other times you ski it like crud, hopping and bouncing through peaks and troughs in the piste, twitching and turning and staying on the tips of your toes to stay ahead of the snow.

And of course, you can carve. Rock your skis on edge and let them run, using the “natural” shape of the ski’s edge to create two beautiful tram lines in the snow.

There’s still so much of Les Arcs open, although not the full 400+km that form the full Paradiski area alongside Villaroger, La Plagne, and Paisey Vallandry. We barely touched the snow above 2,000m – and there is plenty of it, running all the way up to more than 3,000m at the Aguille Rouge.

That is all for the days to come.