For the second week of our year-end vacation we escaped Grenoble that was plagued by inversion, a meteorological phenomenon in which low hanging clouds block the cold air underneath, while it is sunny and warm just few hundred meters higher. It was not only because of the temperature we got away, but the clouds and the fog make everything dull and oppressive, like being in a room with a little too low ceiling.

After some difficulty in finding a place to stay, we got a studio apartment at  Résidence Le Birdie (it is located next to a golf course, therefore the name) in Giez, a small village in Haute-Savoie department between Annecy and Ugines. Of course the village was also under clouds, so we planned to make day-trips to the nearby ski resorts. First we found that there is Nordic skiing very near in Vallée de Tamié. However, as we drove closer it became clear that there hadn’t been any snow this winter.

Next we drove to Le Semnoz, a mountain ski resort at 1699 meters above Annecy. Most of the ride was in a thick fog, but once we got above it, it was all sunshine. However, the resort was quite crowded, as you can see from cars parked by the roadside in the picture below. We tried our skis on the green track but found it a bit too difficult — first half of the loop was to uphill and the second to downhill, which was as steep as the Alpine slope — so we switched to walking. The groomed trails were good enough without snowshoes.

On our second day we drove to Les Saisies in Savoie department. This is where we ended our skiing season last Spring and we really liked it. We had to take a weird detour because the main road was blocked, which meant we arrived at the station only after the noon. We had good skiing conditions; the sun was warm (the car showed +19C when we returned to it at about 3pm.)  and there was no breeze. However, the snow was a bit soft so the glide was not perfect, but that only hurt in uphills. We took another route back through the valley of river Doron that was strangely under frost.

The next morning Giez was also under frost. Again we drove to Les Saisies, and were met with good skiing conditions again, and abundant sunshine.

On our way home we checked the ski station at Les 7 Laux for snowshoeing and were met with the trails that were either icy or muddy, and mainly traveled under the trees hidden from the beautiful sun. The sun was what we wanted — as you can see from the pictures below, Grenoble and Gresivaudan valley were still under clouds. We drove down to the town of Les Adrets and took a few kilometer hike to the direction of Tigneux.

Eventually it was time to dive under the clouds and drive to Grenoble …