Chamonix Snow Report: 13th February 2013

It’s been a very cold last few days actually – Sunday was a real stunner of a day but the on piste temperatures were between -15 and -20+ Brrr! I chickened out – couldn’t quite face the chill factor despite the beautiful weather. It has “warmed up” a bit since then and today on Brevent it was around -10 and another really beautiful day. We jumped on the gondola about 10.30am so there wasn’t any queue to speak of and the car park wasn’t full either. You will notice that in the next fortnight that the traffic police will regularly close off the roads to Brevent as soon as the parking is full, so it’s definitely better to take the bus up there if you can’t face the walk up that steep hill. Another sneaky route up to the Brevent from town is to take the Savoy drag lift to the top of the nursery slopes (behind Club Med) from where you can walk across to the base of the gondola.

There is loads of snow on Brevent at the moment (182cms according to the official stats) and we’ve had a couple of nice top ups in the last few days. On arrival at Plan Praz, it’s the piste information sign that always makes me realise just how deep the snow is. In summer, you have to look up at it for info on the hiking trails, now the bottom part of the map is almost obscured by the snow! I was also quite surprised to get out the gondola today into pea soup, when it had been nothing but blue skies the length and breadth of the valley for the first part of the morning. Descending down the Vioz blue into the mist to the 4-man Parsa chairlift, the snow was lovely though as we’d had another 2-3 centimetres of fresh overnight. The Parsa chair is a notorious bottleneck during peak season and it always drives me mad to see the lifties letting chair after chair go up with only 1 or 2 people on it when the queue is about 15 minutes long. Having done a few seasons in the States where the fabulously cheery lifties somehow manage to gently organise you into a full chairlift without you even realise that you’re being manoeuvred, I can’t understand why they just aren’t a bit more pro-active about that sort of thing here. It gets to the stage that I have to keep my eyes firmly on the floor as I just can’t watch the number of empty seats that remain unfilled. That’s why when it gets to that level of busyness, if you are heading back up to Plan Praz then it’s worth taking the Stade drag lift back up instead as it runs parallel to the chairlift, it’s faster and there is almost never a queue at it.

Having skulked around in the cloud for a couple of runs, we headed for the top cabin as you could tell that it was going to be blue sky up there. Absolute stunner – anyone who didn’t have their camera up there today would have been kicking themselves as it was brochure picture weather up there. With an inversion below, the high peaks soared up out of the clouds. Looked like it was pretty nice on Grands Montets and the Midi as well today, both were completely clear of cloud on the majority of the ski area with just the lower runs descending into whiteness.

New this year at the top of the Brevent is a tiny little creperie. The teeny wooden hut has got a few deck chairs outside and space inside for the person making crepes and a fridge - that’s literally it. So it’s definitely a fine weather only place but wow, what a view from your deckchair! Wish I’d spotted it in time for Pancake Day yesterday....

Unless it has been scoured by high winds at altitude, the Charles Bozon black run from the top of Brevent has nearly always got the best snow of the area (along with the Floria drag lift over on Flegere). Today it was smooth and chalky and there were some lovely powdery bumps to play on as well. The rescue helicopter was hovering at one point today with a pisteur winched down below plucking an unfortunate snowboarder off the mountainside after he had dropped off down a couloir from higher up and got stuck. He was coming down right above the narrow track part of the Charles Bozon run and was no doubt at risk of setting off a slide that could have taken people out on the piste below. He was obviously unharmed but I’m sure he got a few choice words from the pisteur and went home with a bit of a red face. All in one piece though which is the main thing.

Avalanche risk is still significant at the moment - 3/5 for most of the valley and 2/5 in Les Houches. Bearing that in mind, another good way to dodge the crowds safely in the coming fortnight is to book yourself a mountain guide and let them take you to some of the hidden powder stashes far from the madding crowds. You’ll then have the added benefit of being whisked to the front of any queues you do come across with the merest flash of their jacket! If you’re heading this way in the next couple of weeks then we’ve certainly got some fabulous snow conditions for you at the moment – please don’t ski it all out though – we still need if for another couple of months after that! ;O)