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Cross-Country Skiing in the Sunshine

Enjoying a skate around the forests in Chamonix

featured in Activity reviews Author Alison Shayler, Chamonix Reporter Updated

With a couple of hours to kill today and the weather looking like it could go either way, I decided to get the skinny planks out and go for a cross-country ski round the Bois de Bouchet tracks.

I was a bit apprehensive as when I went to pay I was told that the price was reduced to just 3.50€ due to some of the tracks being closed, normally this means that you only have the little blue circuit to skate on which barely takes 10 minutes to whizz round. So I was surprised to find that actually most of the tracks were fine and you can still go all the way to the far end of the Norvege and back.

Heading out from behind the sports centre the Chamonix ski de fond pistes take you past the parapente landing field through the forest to an underpass that goes beneath the road and brings you up beside the Hotel Arveyron (very good vin chaud here by the way). If you're thinking of going parapenting this week then consider taking arm bands, the landing field looks more like a piscine - I could even hear ducks quacking as I skated past! You then loop round to cross the river over a wide bridge and then cruise on over to the Desert Blanc, where you'll often see a bit of biathlon training going on at the shooting range.

On a sunny day like today the Desert Blanc is beautiful - a bright white expanse of snow with the river running along one side and the mountains looming up from both sides, all set off against the clear blue sky. We had the added excitement of seeing one of the mountain rescue helicopters take off and fly over our heads. Not a bad way to spend your lunch break!

The trails were in surprisingly decent condition given the warm wet weather we've had over the past couple of days. A bit soggy in the sunnier parts but most of the trails are amongst the trees and these were all well covered, firm but not icy, and the tracks for classic skaters were intact the whole way round.

Past the Desert Blanc you'll come into the hillier terrain of the Norvege, which was actually in excellent condition and I had heaps of fun flying round the rolling trails, picking up a bit of speed and trying to keep my nerve on the bends to keep pushing through them instead of going into emergency crash land position!

I'm no expert but I love a bit of cross-country skiing and have found it fairly easy to pick up the technique but there are plenty of ski schools that run cross-country ski lessons if you want to learn the basics. The kit is fairly cheap to hire from most ski shops and the piste pass usually costs only 11€ per day and includes entry to the swimming pool and sauna at the Richard Bozon sports centre.

Location

Map of the surrounding area