Chamonix Activity Report: 16th June 2012

For 20 euros, you can buy a valley-wide MTB lift pass for the day, giving you access to all of all lifts that are open to mountain biking (not to be confused with the summer multi-pass where you get access to the Aiguille du Midi and Mer de Glace train.. this pass is just for mountain biking or VTT.) You can find prices for the summer multi-pass here.

The ticket office advised us that the down-hill track under the gondola was closed, but that there was open access at the top to bike wherever you wanted, they just haven't got all the security padding etc in place yet. So, not wanting to be put off too much, we headed up the ramp and shoe-horned our bikes into the gondola (always a bit tricky when your handle bars are wider than the door and you're trying to juggle your bike inwards and upwards whilst the gondola's moving round...)

Why was the track closed? Maybe they were trail-building (we'd heard rumours there might be a new track built from the top lift), Maybe parts of the north-shore needed re-making...? Maybe they were out shaping with mini diggers??? The reason became clear as we headed up towards the mid station in the gondola and took a look out the left window.. there has been a bit of maintenance done on the track (sadly no new track at the top though) but the main reason for the closure was because there were about 100 goats and sheep hanging out just after the big boulder about half way down. Since you need a bit of speed to carry you over the boulder, the landing was looking a bit iffy... (see pics).

We jumped straight on the chair lift to get to the top and did a lap from top to bottom. The top section still had surprisingly big patches of snow which gave me mini flash backs to the Megavalanche last year...tripodding your bike over snow whilst sliding about all over the place is not the easiest thing to do, but definitely a challenge! There was a point where the snow had been washed out by the stream and it made a pretty cool (if not quite small) snow bridge where we crossed over. The actual track was covered in snow in quite a few places, and hard to spot so we had to pick our way down through the heather and try to rejoin it further down, a very boggy experience..

Getting back to the mid station we found the start of the bottom trail had 2 big red 'ferme / closed' signs, and it looked quite loose and rocky at the start, but what the heck, aside from waiting for a few stray hikers to get off the bike track (grrr), we set off to see how it was looking since last year. In places where a bit of maintenance has been going on, its quite loose but in general not in too bad a condition. Getting past all the goats, we found a donkey on the trail in front of us too (I can't wait to see what the video looks like :-)) The north shore was a bit wobbly in one place (you'll recognise the area from the strong smell of goats and sheep!) and at the very end where you scoot up and over the big concreted rocks, it's laying on the side here just next to the trail, so we had to push up and over that bit.

After 2 top-to-bottom laps at Le Tour (second time at the top we started from the hut near the route to Trient), we headed over to Flegere to see what was going on there. It turns out the Index isn't open for biking (no baskets on the chair-lift yet) and there were about 6-7 trees down over the Elf Secret trail (it just needs a couple of guys with a chainsaw for the day to clear it up!!). It was a bit gutting when you're just starting to enjoy the ride and you have to keep jumping off your bike to shove it under large branches and try to figure out where the track has gone...

I forgot how punishing this trail can be, very steep and LOTS of loose rock, branches of trees everywhere.. plus we'd already been going for a few hours and my arms were getting tired. Needless to say this led to me having a couple of falls off the bike when I was trying to avoid big rocks in the middle of the trail, or ends of branches poking out across the track, but at least it was only my pride that was slightly wounded and nothgin more serious.

It was pushing midday now and getting hotter & hotter, so I was glad to see the golf course finally coming into sight (understatement!). We were meeting friends at Les Rhododendrons in Les Praz for lunch and a nice cold drink and I can't tell you how glad I was to have a sit down and a nice cold coke! I wasn't eating, but the pizzas looked pretty darn good, and the salads looked big enough to feed 2 people, so if you're in the mood for a meal outside in the sun it's definitely worth a visit, plus the views are pretty spectacular!

A few points to note:

• If you're thinking of doing the Trient run over the back of Le Tour down into Switzerland then think twice about your route back to Chamonix; the trains between Chamonix and Vallorcine won't be running all summer due to improvement works. There are replacement buses to Vallorcine, however you won't be able to take your bikes on these.
• The Vallorcine gondola opens up on the 30th June for the summer, so at least that give you a ride back up to Le Tour instead of having to slog it all the way back up on the road.
• The bike buses for Chamonix-La Frasse-Le Tour and Chamonix-Les Nants-Col des Montets ran from 2nd July to August 26th last year, so they should be starting again around the same dates this year.
• Rumours of there being no mini-bike park in Les Houches and that the north shore has gone are true. There's still a few good rides to be had over the back into St Gervais, and down the front back into Les Houches, but if you're looking for big drops in the trees, they're no longer there!

Find out more about mountain biking in Chamonix and other summer activities in our guide, and see what the weather's got in store for us this week.