Chamonix Snow Report: 14th March 2009

We were chasing remnants of Wednesday's powder turns; leftovers of that feeling of depth, of not touching the bottom, of faceshots and laybacks. And we found it at Brevent. The day before yesterday, we headed up the speedy new Planpraz gondola, then nipped downstairs and leapt straight on the Brevent cablecar to take us to the top station. From there, we tightened the straps on our backpacks, did a quick transceiver check and headed the short way down the black Bozon piste until we turned off left, round the rope, in the direction of the Hotel Face.

PENTE DE L'HOTEL
The Hotel Face is pretty much the best known off-piste area at Brevent. The access, which is a palaver combination of traversing and hiking, is a pain on skis and worse on a snowboard. The snowpack is more difficult to read than other parts of the valley as most aspects stay in the sun most of the day, making the snow transform quicker. There are dead-end snowfields that end in sixty-metre cliffs. It's not glaciated, but there are plenty of hidden rocks under the snow, ready to make a mess of the base of your skis....or worse.

We headed down the dip, made it back up the other side and started the combination of traversing, skating and hiking that would take us to our line. It was around half an hour of intense exertion, made worse for being out of shape and used to lift-accessed powder and made worse still by being up above 2500m.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, we arrived at our line. It was a pretty little shot, a wide face about 500 vertical metres down, half in the sunshine and half in the shade. The snow we found in the sun was fairly hideous, like old Laughing Cow cheese...but the stuff in the shade was excellent. Really excellent. Wednesday excellent. Thigh to waist deep, dryish, untracked...perfect snow. We took our time on the run, taking plenty of pictures, enjoying the feeling of being up in the mountains. Hope you like the shots.

PISTE CONDITIONS
After finishing up at the Hotel Face, we jumped on the Cornu chair to take some cruisy warm-down runs on the Cornu piste. The conditions by this time (around 2.00pm) were slushy and not great...hard on the legs, but slushy enough to be soft and fun. All aspects were like this, from the Cornu to the Charlanon piste, even the Bozon that comes down from the very top.

We heard from friends that Flegère was much the same...and a morning's cruising at Vallorcine today found the same kind of conditions. The off-piste at Vallorcine started off brittle and bony, until the sun got on it, at which point the snow became immediately slushy, soft and water-saturated. The cold wax on the base of my skis worked great in the morning, but by the time the snow had warmed up, the wax was making my skis stick to the snow, slowing me down. Time to crack out the all-temperature stuff, I think.

There's no new snow forecast, which means that the higher stuff is going to be the order of the day for a while. The Boss des Bosses mogul comp is going to happen at Les Grands Montets on Wednesday - always entertaining, if only to see Glen Plake and his wife doing their inimitable ski ballet.

Until then, grab the sunscreen & all-temp wax, and I'll see you out there!

Tom