Chamonix Snow Report: 11th April 2012

Upon arrival, the car park was surprisingly empty though and we were straight onto the Plan Joran chair lift from the bottom. Even though the resort is pretty quiet now, I still prefer the chair lift option to the cable car which does still back up sometimes, especially on powder days. The Tabé chair was closed today so it was a longer scoot across to the Plan Roujon to get up top. This chair gives you the perfect viewpoint of the off-piste terrain under the Tabe as well as a glimmer of what’s going on in the bottom of the Dream Forest off to the right. The view was very inviting and so the legs got a shock warm up as we headed straight back down the gullies underneath the chairs.

There was a good 20cms of fresh snow here although it was quite hard work for our unwarmed up legs as the terrain was really quite bumpy under the new snow and the visibility was pretty poor. It was also quite heavy in places but you don’t give a second though any to these things when you’re looking at fresh and minimally tracked descents. After several laps and a couple of stacks, we went to see what Bochard had to offer.

At the top, the Bochard was still swathed in the pea soup mist that prevailed in my last report and so we resisted the urge to go and check out the Lavancher bowl anticipating that the visibility would have been absolutely zero. I fear that this may have been a bit of an error but not having spoken to anyone after they did it, I will still sleep happily tonight dreaming of what we did find. Vis was so bad on Bochard, we ended up following the piste down for the first half before veering off down one of my favourite sections to the left of the orange netting and dropping down to the top of the snowpark. It was on this section that we realised that the sun might actually manage break through the fug and we were treated to the occasional bright patches as we bounced down through powdery bumps before heading over to the Herse.

The cloud was drifting in and out all day really but it was at the top of the Herse that we got the best visibility. Although the cloud never cleared fully there were still significant expanses of blue(ish) sky, albeit viewed through a haze of freezing fog that nipped your nose and ears. But this just meant that it never really warmed up too much today and the snow remained soft and light until around 2200m when it did became noticeably heavier as you dropped back down to mid-station. The Herse was slightly delayed in opening this morning until around 9.30-10am and we couldn’t believe how few people were on it. Undoubtedly, the majority of people went for the top ticket option but even so, we were still finding untracked lines at 1pm when criss-crossing between the Blanchots piste and far skiers right underneath the cliffs. It was definitely my legs that gave up before my will today and having been spoiled up top, the heavy snow on the Pierre a Ric felt decidedly sketchy on tired legs

The old wives always say that there will be at least one big dump in April (and with the exception of last year they are always right!) Have we had it now? Well, it looks like tomorrow will bring a bit more snow and the remainder of the week will be pretty unsettled but I reckon we’ll still get another one before this season is out. After today, I’m not ready to give up the pow just yet.