Chamonix Snow Report: 15th January 2007

We headed up to Grands Montets today as it has been a while since we last went there and we felt like trying out the new snow park that has been built. We waited until the afternoon before we went up to give it a chance to soften a little, but it hadn't softened much when we did our first run. There was a little loose snow on top of the hardpack but it was a long way from the afternoon slush that you will find at Flegere at the moment. The park is probably the best one that they've had at Grands Montets in recent times with the table tops small- to medium-sized and easy enough for most skiers and snowboarders. In the upper section there was a rather nice hip, which was my personal favourite. There are a few easy rails in the top part of the park too, all about the same width as a snowboard too to make balancing on them easy. The lower half of the park has some harder table tops and rails and is something that you should move onto only once you're comfortable on the easier ones.

The pistes at Grands Montets were all in good shape today. They are hard and a little icy in places, but they do have plenty of loose snow on top too that gets pushed to the edges or forms little bumps to turn on. I took a ride down the black run Chamois, in the Combe de la Pendant, which was surprisingly good. I've been down it before in early season and it has been littered with rocks but today there were only a couple of places where anything rocky was sticking through. The top half was the best as it had a thin layer on top that was soft enough to easily hold an edge for some carved turns. The lower half was a little trickier to hold an edge on but there was still a little loose snow around to help with turning. Arolles, which is the blue piste going all the way down to the Retour Pendant chair, wasn't bad on the top section either, a little hard and icy, but it deteriorated towards the bottom cat tracks where it was thin and stony. You'd be better off just heading through the tunnel back to the Plan Roujon chairlift.

The Herse chair was practically empty so we took a ride up that to check it out and it was pretty good on the red run Combes. Good enough to do a few laps on in fact. It's all groomed now from top to bottom and barely a sign of any rocks coming through either. What I most enjoyed apart from the super-firm snow to carve on was the piles of loose snow at the sides of the piste: fun material for small jumps onto and off of the piste or just for pulling big turns in to spray snow all over the place. The off piste here still looked a little rocky and it's so firm it's not that different to the pistes themselves, just a little bumpier. Bochard was the same as it always is: hard snow with a little loose sugary snow on top and again the snow cover was superb with hardly any nasty things to watch out for on the piste.

At the end of the day the Pierre a Ric was busy, but nothing like as busy as it can be at peak times. The trick is to get down it as quickly as possible whilst avoiding any collisions. The snow itself was the softest that Grands Montets has to offer, consisting of a deep sugary layer of snow on a fairly hard artificial base. The sugary snow was fun enough and had the benefit of being soft, and it required little edging. There were a few stones to avoid on the lower section where the snow had a distinctly brown tinge to it. All in all an unexpectedly good day at the Grands Montets as the ice was nowhere near as bad as we had expected.

There is a change in the weather forecast for the end of the week; the only question is how low will the snow fall. The lower mountain needs a refresher, so ideally we want the temperatures to drop a little from where they are now to avoid it falling as rain.

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

Useful Information
Cross-country skiing is Open
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

We will be keeping this Chamonix snow report updated often during the season, but if you want even more up-to-date news on the ski conditions, why not sign up for our Dump Alert? We'll email you each time it snows enough to significantly change the skiing conditions. It's great to know that the snow is falling in the run-up to your holiday, and it might even allow you to book a last-minute weekend when the snow is particularly good. The service is free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.

Useful Links
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
French Avalanche Research Institute
Meteo France - Mountain weather and avalanche conditions bulletins (in French)
Henry's Avalanche Talk - popular avalanche training sessions based in French Alps as well as translation of current avalanche conditions
PisteHors.com - Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding News in English for the French Alps. Excellent coverage of avalanche safety and advice

Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office