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Chamonix Snow Report: 15th December 2008

featured in Snow report Author Tom Wilson-North, Updated

We rode Les Houches today, and the snow was, well...dirty. Here's why.

For the last couple of days, it's been snowing like crazy on the other side of the Mont Blanc, at Courmayeur. I'm off to check that out tomorrow, but that's another story. Though the snow's been falling over there, all we've had is the top layer of the storm, a warm & dry foehn wind that's blown down the Mer de Glace and the Argentière glacier.

The wind has blown heavily for the last 72 hours, flapping our shutters in Bossons all night, bringing down trees and...you guessed it...blowing dirt and branches all over our lovely pistes. Hence the dirty snow.

It's incredible that just a few short days can turn dry, light, fluffy pow into sweaty, sandy, saturated, granular, off-white snow. And that's exactly what we skied today at Les Houches.

It was only my third day on skis ever, and I found the snow super forgiving and easy to ride. This, combined with the friendly Les Houches staff who handed over a pile of Prarion single-trip tickets when we flashed our MBU passes, made for a great day. Apparently the guys at the lift itself will be giving out the tickets before long, which could mean a wait at the caisse will become unnecessary.

Unfortunately, though the snow on the piste was great fun to ski, Chamonix town has turned very brown, with no snow on any of the trees up to 2000m. The places to ski this week will be the ones that have been sheltered from this vile, gusty, snow-eating foehn wind. Head to Vallorcine when it opens this Saturday 20th December.

Tom



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

Stats

Avalanche Risk
  • Level 3

Snow Report
  • 1

  • Total Pistes: 75

  • Alt. Resort: 1972

  • Alt. Summit: 2700

  • Alt. Last Snow: 1050

  • High Temp.: 3

  • Alt. High Temp.: 1050