First Snow! Top of Saulire receives a dusting 25 Sep 2014

24 / 25 September saw the first dusting of snow on the top of Saulire above Courchevel and Meribel.

Not really the first snow of the season though as these pics by Francis Pachon of Dou des Lanches and Dent du Villard were from July 10 (anything after 21st June when the nights start drawing in counts as the following season!).

And below is the Val Thorens webcam on 10 July 2014

La Tania to Meribel Road Closure – Expected to re-open 31 Oct 2014

Update: The road reopens on 15 October 2014

The La Tania to Méribel Village road has been closed since 7 July 2014 and is expected to be closed for around 4 months, re-opening 31 October 2014 in time for the build up to the Winter season. The diversion via Brides Les Bains and Les Allues adds around 50 minutes to the journey at present.

It’s always suffered from land slips as it clings to the side of the mountain and has required many on-going repairs over the years. This work is a major piece of engineering to sort it out properly forever hopefully.

Further disruption is expected for the next two Summers as a separate road (in effect a bridge) is created higher up and actually away from the side of the mountain where the land slide area is. There’s not as much plant and machinery (and explosives!) as there was in July and August so the road is passable at weekends on Mountain Bike we here – at your own risk of course…

Thanks to Ferg at Ski Deep for the pics.

Kitchen Nightmares TRAILER – La Tania ‘s Tim Wall on C4 30 Sep 9pm

Tue 30th September 9pm Channel 4 – Save the date! Tim Wall is a Kitchen Nightmare at Le Deck Bar/Restaurant in Capbreton with Gordon Ramsay and plenty of Pub Le Ski Lodge staff in Costa Del Nightmares…

Tim & Debbie’s Bar/Restaurant in the South-West of France – Le Deck in Capbreton features in the 2nd episode in the last ever series of Kitchen Nightmares after 10 years and 123 episodes. The first episode of this last series screens on 23 September.

The Snow Reports will never be the same again with T Wall after his TV debut…

Kitchen Nightmares ran for 10 years with 123 restaurants in 99 cities.
If you watched all episodes back-to-back it would run for 6,868 minutes.
It was sold into 150 territories and the format produced locally for 30 territories.

$37.3M in US ad revenue 2012-13 – first ever episode watched by 5.7m.
Swear count – 10,197
Tears – 0.4 gallons
Meltdowns – 27
Walkouts – 1
Mice – 1
Meows – 6
Ulcers – 2
Pepto Bismol – 2.3 litres
Zantacs – 234