Chamonix Snow Report: 13th February 2005

Friday evening's rain continued all day yesterday with temperatures here around +4ºc. This morning it finally turned back into the white stuff as the temperature at our house in town dropped to around –1ºc for most of the day, refreezing the wet and slushy snow that made yesterday feel so damp and miserable. This morning we had 55cm of snow in our garden but by late afternoon it had risen to 60cm. We've had some very gusty winds and heavy snow showers although they seem to have dropped away now. It's snowing steadily as I type this report.

Through the night and in the morning there was a lot of avalanche blasting happening in the valley, with some blasts sounding very close and rattling the doors onto our balcony. The rain we had yesterday apparently fell as snow above 1800m, so most of the ski areas should have had a good top up. The extremely high winds and recent heavy snowfall have also created some very dangerous conditions on the mountain with the avalanche risk now at 4. This has meant that all the pistes and lifts have been closed for the day with the exception on the nursery slopes in the lower valley.

With no snowboarding to be done I took a walk up to the Savoy nursery slopes behind the Club Med building to see how busy it was and surprisingly it seemed that the queues weren't too bad. I could also see across to Les Planards, which is on the other side of town. That's a longer, steeper slope than Savoy with a chairlift, and it didn't look too busy either. Les Chosalets nursery slopes were also open further up the valley at Argentiere. I heard from some friends that went past Les Houches that it's very busy there with its tree-line skiing, and I guess it's got the only decent size lifts open in the valley today.

The high winds at altitude are forecast to keep blowing for a few days more so I don't hold out too much hope of being able to get up on the mountain anytime soon. I'm also hoping the wind isn't going to be playing havoc with the snow up there, it could be blowing all the powder around and creating windcrusts and slabs. We'll just have to wait and see.

Useful Links
Cross-country skiing is Open
Piste Maps for Chamonix (pdf format), Les Houches (jpg format), Cross-country skiing (pdf format), and Mountain-bike trails (pdf format)
Current status for opening of Pistes & Lifts
Chamonix Webcam Index

We will be keeping this Chamonix snow report updated often during the season, but if you want even more up-to-date news on the ski conditions, why not sign up for our Dump Alert? We'll email you each time it snows enough to significantly change the skiing conditions. It's great to know that the snow is falling in the run-up to your holiday, and it might even allow you to book a last-minute weekend when the snow is particularly good. The service is free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.

Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office