Chamonix Snow Report: 14th April 2005
We've had a cloudy past few days in Chamonix, with temperatures fairly mild and no fresh snow. In fact yesterday was so cloudy and foggy up at Flegere that we had to abort an attempt to do the Col de Beugeant despite Tuesday's forecast of 90% sunshine. Today has been warmer and less cloudy with very pleasant sunny spells. The cloud seems to have been preserving the snow fairly well, and it has not gone too slushy until late in the afternoon on the lower slopes at Flegere and Brevent. At about midday–early afternoon today the snow was just about perfect. Temperatures haven't been that cold at night so I don't think it's been freezing very hard, which has helped to keep the pistes a little softer.
The snow at Brevent is fairing better than Flegere, which at the Liaison area is in a pretty grim state. The snow on Evettes is very thin, browned with mud and full of stones. I actually walked this section to save my board. By contrast the snow higher up at Flegere is very good with the area at the top of Index as good as it's been all season (which is true of most of the upper runs). Lower down, the Trappe piste is starting to get pretty slushy and a little sticky in the afternoon. It's developing its first thin patches although it is still in reasonably good condition and a world away from the near dead condition of Evettes. A little shortcut off the side of the Pylones piste revealed some very good snow off piste, not powder by any stretch of the imagination, but instead soft, smooth and very pleasant to turn on indeed. An improvement on Wednesday's crusty off piste.
Brevent is definitely the best choice as the snow is that little bit colder and coverage is almost complete. The worst area is the high traffic Vioz, with a few thin patches starting to show again, although it's still in very good state with the snow soft but not at all slushy. The other pistes are all in excellent condition and probably about as good as you could expect. The red runs Chamois and Charlanon have 100% snow cover with no nasties; the snow is soft on top with a firm base and just about as good as it gets. Charles Bozon is as ever in good shape although on some of the steeper, moguled short cuts near the top a few rocks are just starting to poke through.
This afternoon the pistes were deserted. I didn't have to queue at any lifts at all; in fact to my surprise on the Liaison cable car I was the only passenger. It hasn't been this empty all season, even in the normally quiet weeks in January.
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
Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office
Stats
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Level 2
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0
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Total Pistes: 80
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Alt. Resort: 2000
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Alt. Summit: 3000
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Alt. Last Snow: 1042
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High Temp.: 18
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Alt. High Temp.: 1042
