Chamonix Snow Report: 17th February 2005

Today on the sunniest day we've seen for some time, we went on an epic grand tour of all the ski areas in one day as one of our housemates is leaving for England this weekend. We started at Brevent and went up to the very top on the cable car. The Charles Bozon or Charlie Bronson as it's known in our house was near perfect, but the loose snow on the surface was causing a few skiers problems. The off-piste looked superb and barely tracked but we were on a mission and didn't have time to test it today.

At Flegere the visibility went for a while as some cloud drifted by, depositing a light flurry of snow in the process. The snow off-piste here was a touch windblown with a crust, even a little heavy in places and generally more tracked than Brevent. The last dump of snow appears to have changed the terrain on the mountain, with rocks buried and small bushes and trees gone. The pistes were the best they've been all season, enabling us to ride down the black run Praz to Les Praz; there were only a few bare patches right at the bottom just before the golf course.

By the afternoon we arrived at Grands Montets, which was in the sun and feeling quite warm. The snow off-piste was still super light if you could find some untracked sections, however Pierre a Ric had some very icy patches below some of the snow canons and was generally pretty hard - a bit of a shock after all the powder we've been getting the past few days.

We took the bus up to Le Tour, which was a good call as the car park was rammed at 3pm, with cars parked down the road halfway to Monroc. If you have a car it might be worth driving the extra distance to Vallorcine to avoid the crowds. The Autannes chair had a massive queue; it was moving fairly quickly but it took us about 15 minutes to get through. It seems there are a lot of families and children up there at the moment, with some of the Liaison Balme piste a bit congested at the intersections with the other runs so take care up there. There was still some wind blowing and in the shade it felt quite cold at the back of Le Tour. We finished with a run down the cat track Foret Verte to Vallorcine, which was hard-packed and bit icy on some of the corners. It wasn't too busy and undoubtedly quieter than the home run to Le Tour at this time of day. We took our ride home from Vallorcine on the Mont Blanc-Express train to Chamonix, which was free with our lift tickets but a bit of a squeeze.

Useful Links
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.

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