A crowd of people are gathered in front of a building that says ' salomon ' on it

A snowy mountain range with a blue sky in the background

A person skiing down a snow covered slope

A group of people skiing down a snow covered slope

A person skiing down a snowy slope with trees in the background

Chamonix Snow Report: 13th March 2008

featured in Snow report Author Jim Brady, Updated 24 October 2014

Winter wags its tail. After the record breaking sunshine of February, residents and visitors alike were thinking spring had come early but in the last 10 days winter has returned to the valley. It's been raining, or snowing above 1800m steadily for the past couple of days. The total amount of snow fallen is difficult to determine as it has been extremely windy at the same time, which has also been playing havoc with the lifts. My best estimate is 40 cm total of much needed fresh snow.

Today was forecast to be mainly clear with no more snowfall, and so it was. There had been much chatter about a “powder day” and on arrival at the Grands Montets the car park was rammed and the cable car queue out of the front door. We nipped around the back of the cable car station and joined a fairly large queue for the chair which we got on in about 20mins.

Even from the chair we could tell that although the snow was looking good it wasn't going to be exactly a powder day. Not wanting to get caught up in any more queues we headed straight for the high speed Herse 6 man chair, which with a capacity of 2600 people and hour rarely gets overwhelmed. A few laps off piste, left, right and centre, confirmed the nightshift had been hard at work and while the snow was delightful, light and soft, it had been almost totally tracked out.

A ride up the Bochard gondola and down the Le Lavancher bowl was much the same story, great snow but few lines to be had. The pistes were also benefiting from the top up, although with my power day skis on the hard patches were tricky.

The best skiing we had today was in the Dream Forest. This area, to the right as you look up from the Plan Joran is a great place to ride or ski in bad weather as the trees give both protection from the elements and more visual clues if its hard to see. Although that was not necessary today, the trees had also given the snow some protection from the wind and there were a few fresh lines to be had in the heavy powder. You access the main section of the forest cutting off the Blue Aroilles piste high and over the bottom part of the Black Chamois piste into the forest.

The forest is fairly open with a few drop offs, great fun if there is lots of snow. A cat track (a pedestrian walk between Plan Joran and Pendant) cuts all along the bottom. Don't cross the cat track but turn skiers left when you hit it and depending how far left you are, you may need to walk a short distance up hill. The track then emerges onto the bottom of the Black Remuaz piste just above the Pendant chair.

The top section of the cable car and a few of the lifts in other areas of the valley were shut today due to the wind, but as these open up access to untouched fresh snow will continue to give some great riding and skiing through the weekend.

The avalanche level today was 2/3 the higher level appropriate above 2000m its due to drop to 2 tomorrow but rise again over the weekend. The forecast is for fine weather tomorrow, and for it to be very mild on Saturday, which if you are venturing off piste means take extra care. From Monday fresh disturbances are passing over that should produce more snow, and hopefully winter's tail will carry on wagging for a few more weeks.

Check out what to do around town once the lifts have closed with our latest Apres Ski Report - a weekly round up of what's hot and where to party in Chamonix!