Musings from Montgènevre

21/02/25

As I sit here on a Friday evening, full to bursting with cheese and bacon stuffed pancakes, I can hear the sounds of rumbling engines. Ice is being crushed by tyres, clutches are whining and marital harmony is being tested by attempts to manoeuvre onto levelling ramps in the dark on an icy surface. Weekend visitors are arriving on the ginormous 220 space aire at Montgènevre. Mostly Italians I would surmise by the sounds of the voices and by the fact it’s a weekend. We can remember the way that Italian weekenders filled up the aire when we were here in 2019 and nothing seems to have changed.

Snowchains on Arrival

We arrived on Monday, in the daylight because we’d quite like to stay married. The aire was like an ice rink with a thin layer of melt water on top to add to the jeopardy. We found a spot and reversed into the pitch only to get one wheel stuck in a hole in the ice. There was no way we were getting out without some traction so we got the snowchains out. They are new chains of the ‘ladder’ variety, because the wheels on our Ford are too close to the suspension arms to fit normal chains that wrap all the way round the wheel. They weren’t cheap but don’t give me quite the same amount of confidence as our old chains did.

At least we had prepared. These snow chains had to be adjusted to be exactly the right size for our wheels by removing links. So we had a trial run of getting them on at home.

Konig K-Summit Snow Chains, we used them to navigate on the ice and decided to keep them on in case we needed them later. As you can see Paul’s shovelling and the warm weather mean they probably wont be needed.

Winter Tyres

I know we invite criticism for this, but we have not upgraded to all season tyres with the 3PMSF (3 peak mountain snowflake) symbol. We tried to get the dealer to do this for us but they were unwilling. After some investigation we decided not to upgrade this year as we are only planning to drive in France and Italy this winter. Possibly a controversial decision.

Many people believe that France and Italy (Aosta Valley) mandate the use of 3PMSF marked tyres in winter, but this is not the case. The rules are that vehicles must either have winter tyres (with the 3PMSF mark) OR carry snow equipment i.e. snow chains. The recent change is that M&S tyres are no longer acceptable as winter tyres.

As far as I can tell (I haven’t properly investigated because we’re not planning to visit this year) Austria and Germany mandate the use of winter tyres in snowy conditions. Snow chains are allowed instead, but only if there is a continuous covering of snow which is not always the case. In Switzerland your vehicle has to be roadworthy for the conditions but neither winter tyres or snow chains are a requirement, it’s your responsibility to determine if your vehicle is suitable for the conditions you are driving in.

We will definitely be switching to 3PMSF tyres when we need new ones (or before we head to a country where they are required). For now, as we don’t have a set schedule, we will avoid driving on snowy days.   

Sunny Days and Melting Snow

Tuesday was a work day so we didn’t get out skiing until Wednesday. The clear skies had continued giving classic freeze-thaw conditions. The sun has been steadily thinning the snow for about a week but at least the cold night-time temperatures have allowed a bit of artificial snow to be created and pistes to be conditioned.

We had two decent days of skiing but by the end of the second day it was getting very slushy on the lower slopes and brown patches had started to appear where mud was coming through. I now have a massive scratch in the base of my skis where I hit a rock right in the middle of a slope. I’ll need to get that fixed.

It feels like a bit of a deja-vu visit to Mongènevre. Last time we were here it was very warm and it was busy with school holidays. In fact it was so busy and unpleasantly warm we escaped south and ended up at the Verdon Gorge. This week has been half term week in the UK and also for a couple of areas of France, but somehow the slopes don’t seem as busy as 5years ago. Are less people getting away? Or have improvements to the lift systems allowed people to spread out better on the slopes? What ever it is, we are glad that we’ve been able to get a couple of days skiing in but I think we’re going to hold off skiing now until the weather gets colder and maybe we get a little snow. Today has been a work day and then some nice snowy walks will be on the cards.

The melting snow around town is quite a depressing sight. The slush and slowly eroding mounds of snow start to look dirty and drab rather than pristine white. It’s mixed with mud trodden from people’s shoes and dirt and oil from cars. Brown grass is revealed, dying or dormant and waiting for spring to turn it green again. Days old dog poo, originally covered by snow, is slowly revealed. A new blanket is needed to cover up the scruffy sight.

Catching Water

In common with most winter motorhomers, we don’t shut our grey waste. Instead we put a bowl under our waste outlet to catch our water. This stops the grey waste outlet from freezing up.

In Bertie the waste outlet was near the side of the van, easy to slide a bucket underneath. The new van has the waste outlet so far underneath that we need to get on hands and knees to get a bowl in place. Very annoying. We might invest in a wastemaster for our next ski trip.

Note that the bowl is too small to capture a shower’s worth of water. When we shower we close the waste and then empty it afterwards either by driving to the disposal point or doing multiple trips with the bowl.

Are there enough windows in our van?

We’ve been using our silver screen cover since we arrived in the alps. It’s a great way of keeping the cold at bay from the cab area where Paul sits, and it stops condensation forming on the inside of the windscreen, but we miss the ability to see what’s going on in front of us. We rarely used our silver screen for Bertie, our old van, it was just too unwieldy. This one is much easier to get on but the we’re stuck with limited visibility. Yes we’re nosy. I remember taking the micky out of Mum and Dad siting their caravan so they could people watch, but now we’re guilty of the same. Luckily we can drop the front screen and that has become part of our daily routine. Drop the front screen when we’re up and dressed and then raise it once twilight arrives.

Silver Screen dropped just enough for us to see out

In the bedroom area there is only a single window which is at the foot end of the bed. When we’re in bed it’s nice to be able to drop the window blind to see what’s happening outside, either because we hear an odd noise or because we’ve just woken up and want to see what the weather is. It’s a small thing, but we’re finding it annoying enough that we’re thinking of getting a wind put in at some point. “Why don’t you sleep the other way around?”, I hear you say. Well, the light switch and USB sockets are at the ‘head end’, and there is also better separation from the main hab area. We’ve tried the other way but it just doesn’t feel right. I also think it looks a bit odd from the outside. If we don’t get an additional window then at least we need to get a decal to jazz up the blank space.