Winter makes a brief return to Les Deux Alpes

The Bas de Piste slopes have enjoyed fresh snow fall and are now in excellent condition. They are busy this week as its British, French and Belgium holidays. There are lots of beginners out learning with the resorts ski schools. The quietest time here is lunch time, or if you have a private lesson you can use the priority lines.

Crete is a hub of activity this week. The magic carpet is busy with beginners and those coming to altitude for the first time. The Crete chairlift is another area which can become busy, but again the key is to be earlier than the ski school groups to get up high, or lunchtime is always quiet. The blue and green runs, Petite Crete and Crete are in fabulous condition, well groomed and prepared. The runs back to resort are the blue and black, Valentine and Jandri 1. The Jandri 1 is a lovely run during the day, but can become busy at 16:00 when everyone is heading home. The Valentine can be closed early in the morning to allow the snow to soften, but is a lovely black when soft.

Bellecombe is our favourite for piste skiing. It is north facing and the snow stays cold and good all day. The blues are steep but excellently groomed, and the red only has one steep section in it. The black Bellecombe 6 is a real black run, with large moguls on it. Great fun, but not for the faint-hearted. From the top of the Bellecombe chair you can access the Super Diable runs by turning right, and and also the Jandri Express and La Toura. The Super Diable is also in excellent condition, but it's a steep black.

La Toura is a fun area for all the family. There is an excellent dual slalom accessed with your lift pass, and the freestyle area with jumps, boxes, and rails for all levels. Remember, the big jumps are big, and it's not the jumping that’s hard; its the landing. There is also a boarder cross run in La Toura with a four gate entrance to race from, and a red run with plenty of bumps on it. The blue pistes here are gullied and groomed.

La Fee is our main off piste area and has mainly steeper runs. The reds and blacks are fun but steep, and the blue is beautiful but has a few steep sections, and lots of flat long schuss’. The snow is excellent all through this area, but can soften lower down during the day. It won’t be long until the marmots will be snowing their faces here, although they now have a fair amount of snow to dig through to open up their homes.

The glacier is as always and excellent choice of area to ski in, as the snow is good year round. My favourite run up here is the blue Signal, a wide open piste with plenty of scope for practicing carving and short turns. If you're not keen on the T-bar to get up the glacier you can ski around and take the funicular, which is an under ground train that will take you to 3400m, from where you can access the viewing platforms and see Mont Blanc and into the Ecrins National Park.

The Avalanche risk rose from 1/5 to 3/5 with the fresh snow last week, and has now gone down to 2/5 but remains at this for the moment. With the rising temperatures in the afternoons the risk rises throughout the day, so we still need to be careful out there.

The forecast is very mixed. With snow, sun, rain on the horizon. Today's version is that we will see some sleety snow later today and over night, before a cloudy Thursday. Friday looks to be the day of the week, with wall to wall sunshine and next to no wind. The weekend looks to be bringing more snow, although at the moment with the changeable forecasts, this is a little too far ahead to be sure. Have a fantastic week, and watch this space for next weeks update on conditions.