The La Tania Ski Blog
Latest news, snow, pics, gossip and information from the locals in La Tania – latania.co.uk
All the latest news from around the Three Valleys from the La Tania locals. A real blog since 2006, not just endless re-posts for search engine optimisaton! Photos, gossip, snow reports, what's on and all the latest on the Apres Ski scene... Now fully optimised for iPhone, Touch and Android Mobiles - just go to latania.co.uk/blog and view on your phone. Our other past blogs & favourites here
The Annecy “Alps Murders” back in the news
The “Alps Murders” story was back in the news again yesterday. The Mirror Group has a new book on the subject coming out next week entitled The Perfect Crime and has an interview with Zaid Al-Hilli whose brother Saad along with his wife and her mother plus a local cyclist were murdered nearly 3 years ago.
When news of this horror surfaced in September 2012 it came as a real shock not least as La Tania friends live very nearby and drove a BMW X5 (however news quickly emerged that the vehicle had English number plates so we knew it wasn’t them). We’ve kept a close watch on the story ever since – the conspiracy theories are endless…
The brothers argument over a £1m house inheritance was one line of enquiry but other theories include:
Work connections to Iran satellite and nuclear industry, Mossad involvement, the French cyclist relationships and wife’s rich family with a string of Chemists in the area, a random robbery gone wrong, a random crazed gunman, a professional assassin, Saddam Hussein money links and also that the wife or mother were the targets relating to their past in the Middle East and USA.
Now add in the Swiss Bank accounts being frozen, a local ex dodgy policeman with an illegal gun collection being investigated, other distinct vehicles in the area, no pictures of the cyclist and his quick funeral, the very old gun used but fired rapidly and accurately according to some but not others, comments recorded on right wing websites, a visit to a private Geneva bank on the morning of the killing, the children surviving the attack and the strange story of the wife’s first husband being killed on the same day possibly by a poison dart…
The book by Mirror reporter Tom Parry is available from 29 May 2015.
Skiing and Football… Combined at last
From THISISFOOTBALL.COM and shot in Geilo, Norway. We did try the rugby version of this in Courchevel a couple of years ago when they organised games on the Jantzen piste above 1850 – anyone remember what they called it?
More footie related stuff at La Tania does football and much more of this next year as Euro 2016 is held across France from 10th June until 10th July. Host cities are Bordeux, Lens, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris (and Saint-Denis), St Étienne & Toulouse.
After the storm… A real Bluebird…
Fresh snow and blue skies – a real Bluebird in La Tania and Meribel this morning. Winter not completely over yet, it could be a similar situation next weekend too! La Tania opens for Summer in 7 weeks. Webcam pics below…
4 hours from green to white…
Snow on The Bouc Blanc Terrace this morning
Just about a covering of snow on the Bouc Blanc terrace above La Tania this morning.
Temperatures dropped from 20C yesterday to almost zero overnight as a front came across France accompanied with a narrow channel of cold air between sucked down from Scandinavia between high & low pressure systems.
Forecast models a week ago had snow down to 1200m but this gradually rose as we got nearer to a reliable timeframe and this “Arctic Blast” didn’t quite pan out with snow down to resort level. Cost me a tenner in a bet too…
By 10am snow coming down in La Tania but probably too warm to accumulate.
Update: By 1pm La Tania is starting to look all white again – my tenner is safe!
Snow on Friday! Looks like La Tania will be all white once again
Winter coming back for one last blast as temperatures plunge on Friday with snow forecast down to 1300m.
The last lifts of the season close in Val Thorens
Val Thorens finally closes after 24 weeks of operation and with 52 of its 79 pistes still open. Back for Winter 2016 on 21 November…
There is Summer lift opening for hikers and bikers of course… Summer Life in La Tania
Season just about over with VT Closing Sunday. Some of the Stats…
So Val Thorens opened for Winter some 167 days ago and closes on Sunday still with 26 lifts and 60 pistes open today.
The Season Montage – Link here
The annual Nick Ski snow analysis should be along soon but safe to say it ended up pretty good in the end. The early snow around Val Thorens opening day was great but lower down it was unusually slow to get started. Mild temperatures meant it was the first time since snow cannons went in on Folyeres in 2003 that you haven’t been able to ski down to resort on opening day. That said, once the snow did come in a decent amount it had to happen on probably the busiest transfer day of the season – with lots of stories of transport chaos, heroic rescues and everyone helping each other out in the end. Fairly consistent snowfalls followed and snow depths were up to around average by the end of March.
So a little break before Summer when La Tania opens on 4th July until 28th August – Check out all the activities available in Summer on our Summer Life in La Tania page.
After 40 Snow Reports & Videos, 100 Blog entries, some 2,500 photos, 850 tweets, 600 Facebook posts that break is needed! First reunion of Summer is the Sunset Sons gig at Scala, London on Tue 12 May and Val Thorens opens in 198 days time…
Facebook followers 5,785 and Twitter followers 3,631
Season 2015 – YouTube Views 36k and Blog Views 110k
And latania.co.uk managed to get over 100,000 unique users and break a million page views in a season for the first time.
