Cool Bus

01/06/2026

The Elusive Seven Month Season

Could the winter of 2025/26 be one for the history books? I don’t recall a season where we've had so much snow both at the start and end, since Cool Bus started 25 years ago. Our first day snowboarding in Les Arcs was the 3rd November and the last was today, 1st June, in Tignes. Seven months.

Now both these dates are well outside the lift opening periods and involved leg power to get up but neither were just token efforts. On the 3rd November we rode from the top of the Trans Arc in Les Arcs all the way down to Arc 2000 and today from the top of the Grand Motte cable car almost all the way down to Tignes Val Claret. In between we’ve ridden in resorts of the Tarentaise every single week.

We had consistent snow throughout November and went split boarding in Les Arcs and La Rosiere on a regular basis. Tignes and Val d’Isère were both on excellent form for their opening dates in November and December respectively.

La Plagne pre-opening weekend on the 6th December also had amazing conditions but then a dry patch hit through until mid-January, bringing icy conditions to most resorts. It did prompt us to make a quick sortie down south to the Italian resort of Limone which had been lucky enough to catch 1.2 metres of fresh snow.

Things improved again towards the middle of January and all our local resorts received a much needed top up and then a huge storm right in the middle of the February holiday period brought chaos. It was only the second time that we can remember that we’ve had an avalanche risk of 5/5. Roads closed, curfews were put in place and most resorts only had a quarter of their lifts running

March was back to normal with consistent snowfall throughout and then April and May have seen freezing levels yo-yoing. Full sunshine and valley temperatures of 20+ degrees one week, then snow at 2000m the next. It’s these regular spring top ups that have really extended the end of the season.

Definitely one to remember.

NB: Please don't take this as further proof that climate change is a hoax, It really isn't. This is just weather. To be honest it was nice to have a winter where it didn't rain at 2000 metres mid-January, something we've experienced for at least the last six winters. And this was also a La Niña year

24/05/2026

Les Deux Alpes 24th May 2026.

Amazing conditions on the glacier thanks to the late snow we've had this year. Top of the T-bar down to the bottom of the very impressive Jandri 2 gondola is around 5 km and there are multiple pistes to chose from in this direction, plus the Signal chairlift off to the side, a world class snow park and even the off-piste is decent after about 10:30am.

If you are happy heading up at 09:30 (and it's pretty bulletproof before that) you can buy an adult day pass for 42 euros which will get you at least 3 hours skiing/snowboarding and then lift access to the bike park for the rest of the day. if you think that sounds exhausting you are correct!

20/05/2026

Les Arcs 20th May 2026

16/05/2026

Tignes, 14th May

01/05/2026

This winter our fleet of electric vehicles saved enough CO2 to carbonate 1,539,000 litres of Sodastream Cherryade. This and other mind bending facts in the latest Cool Bus blog - 25 Winters Deep

It’s the last day of April 2026 and I’m on my way back to Bourg St. Maurice from the Spring Break snowboard test which took place in Kaunertal, Austria. My first time there (though not the first time a Cool Bus has been but that’s another story!) and I had ummed and ahhed before deciding…

14/02/2026

Our good friends at Protect Our Winters UK have a campaign running at the moment called 'Clean Miles'. They are focusing on the environmental impact of the method you chose for travelling to 'the great outdoors'. Obviously this is very specific to what we do.

We have been working for nearly ten years to reduce the impact of your journey to the mountains by replacing our diesel vehicles with EV's, powered by the low carbon French grid. Each of our electric vehicles saves around 40 metric tonnes of CO2 every winter over diesel powered minibuses (including vehicle manufacturing related emissions - see our post in January for a full breakdown of the figures).

This is all well and good but can't take away from the fact that we are prinicpally an airport transfer company. 95% of our clients make the bulk of their journey by plane. We have recently seen a small upturn in the number of people arriving by train and it would be amazing to see that trend continue (we also provide train transfers ;) )

That's where the 'Clean Miles' campaign comes in. POW are calling for public transport that is better connected, more reliable and more frequent. Also for provision for us to transport the equipment we need for sport - bikes, skis, snowboards and the rest. It only takes 1 minute to sign their petition, just click the link below. You'll also find links to relevant articles including travel to the alps by train.

Thanks

https://staging.protectourwinters.uk/clean-miles

https://youtu.be/oBXcEGpqFdg?si=g49T5a2y0wGx6OYP

We love the outdoors – but too often getting there means having to rely on cars and planes. Cleaner options exist, but they don’t always work. Taking gear o...

09/02/2026

We have found ourselves with a load of spaces available for the last last week in February - the post half term slump! As such we have just knocked a massive 30% OFF PRIVATE TRANSFERS in the following slots:

- Saturday 21st February, from Geneva to all Tarentaise resorts from flights landing between 09:00 and 17:00

- Saturday 28th February, from all Tarentaise resorts to Geneva with a pick up times between 05:00 and 08:30 (good roughly for flight departure times between 10:00 and 14:30)

No need for any offer codes, just go to www.thecoolbus.co.uk

Photo - Bec Black, La Rosière - Espace San Bernardo, 29/11/25

24/01/2026

One more quick sum to add to this blog. How does the overall CO2 emissions of a Model X stack up against a diesel after just 25,000km of driving ?

Diesel SUV

25,000km @ 0.075 litres/km = 1875 litres
1875 x 2.7kg CO2 per litre = 5062 kg

Plus CO2 from refining 466kg

Total = 9000 (manufacturing emissions) + 5062 + 466 = 14.52 tons

Model X

25,000km @ 0.3 KWh/km = 7500 KWh
7500 x 58g CO2/KWh = 435kg

Total = 14000 (manufacturing emissions) + 435 = 14.43 tons

So a Model X pays off its manufacturing CO2 emissions debt after 25,000 km of driving. Again, this is based on the most conservative figures I could find.

https://thecoolbus.co.uk/our-tenth-winter-of-electric-airport-transfers/?fbclid=IwY2xjawPhVZ5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETBwcUhPSFFnYmVMRDhzNEZKc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHrtNbnwyy4u3P2VlEXSAGPG1ydx6kvLVMj0J9ykEBmmBEitHl10-fzys1z9O_aem_830Gs0n5WOsPD2OJXBW95Q

It’s a sad day at Cool Bus HQ. The time has come to say goodbye to a long standing member of our team. A quick scan of our driver roster this winter shows that over half have worked more than ten seasons for us. All of our office staff can say the same but this…

22/01/2026

Throwback Thursday - that time we thought 'Layby Lil' was a gonna...

Our route from the Tarentaise valley to Geneva airport runs through Albertville and then alongside Lake Annecy. Partway along the section before the lake there is a lay by where you will often see a friendly lady smiling and waving at the cars as they drive past.

Over the last 5 or 6 six years she has become part of the local scenery and reached almost mythical status amongst our staff so you can imagine the horror one of our drivers felt as he drove past last weekend to find her missing. Right next to the lay by was a huge rock that had clearly come down from the cliffs above with a pair of legs sticking out from underneath. He immediately slammed on his brakes, jumped out of his van and ran over to see what could be done....

Turns out some joker had just shoved a couple of broom handles under the rock and put a pair of wellies on the ends!

19/01/2026

Here's a new blog post discussing what we've learnt over the last ten winter seasons providing electrically powered airport transfers. Lots of real world data, myth busting and a break down on how the emissions from 300,000 km driven in our oldest EV stacks up against a similar size diesel.

https://thecoolbus.co.uk/our-tenth-winter-of-electric-airport-transfers/