A group of people are skiing in front of a building that says les grands montets

Chamonix Snow Report: 18th January 2005

featured in Snow report Author Ellie Mahoney, Chamonix Editor Updated 26 May 2016

With snow forecast to start late last night I woke up this morning expecting to see the magic white stuff falling out of the sky, but it was just cloudy and hadn't snowed at all. However, by about 10:30 it had started to snow down in Chamonix. It wasn't heavy but it was what everyone had been hoping for over the past few weeks. We waited a couple more hours before heading out, just so a few inches of snow would take the edge off of the all-too-familiar hard stuff.

The decision was taken to head up to Brevent as it is closest to home, but, in our excitement, we hadn't checked the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc website to see if the lifts were open. After the trudge up hill, the lift station looked unusually empty; the lady at the desk informed us that Le Brevent and La Flegere were closed for the rest of the day because of strong winds at altitude. The logical next step was to head up to Les Grands Montets as it and Le Tour were still open. By the time we had caught the bus up to Argentiere the snow was coming down thick and fast.

This choice of runs at Les Grands Montets wasn't exactly wide with only four lifts open (the cable car to Lognan, Plan Joran, Plan Roujon, and Retour Pendant). The top of Plan Roujon was very windy but the snow had done a good job of covering the hard stuff below; especially after our second run down, we could feel it improving, with hard patches getting smaller and the piles of fresh snow getting bigger. Despite this being the only area open it was pretty quiet with no lift queues to be seen anywhere and the pistes deserted. Marmottons was good, as was Pierre a Ric, but Coqs was suffering from the cross wind that wasn't allowing any snow to settle on it. It was bare and patchy with the fresh white snow making it look even browner than before.

I noticed a few skiers and boarders walking out of the cat track next to the bottom of the Plan Roujon chair; they had been through the Dream Forest, an area of trees, rock drops and pillow lines. I'm not sure the snow cover in there is yet good enough to make up for the hike; however, if it keeps snowing I feel I may have to test it out soon. After a couple of laps of Pierre a Ric, which was softer than usual with the fresh snow covering most of the artificial stuff, I decided to call it a day and save myself for the coming powder days. We had a few post-ride beers in the Rencard, in Argentiere and through the window we watched the feathery snowflakes falling like crazy. As I type this back in Chamonix a friend just came back to our house with a pizza and said that 3 inches fell on it on the 5 minute walk home - it is officially dumping big time. I'd better set my alarm nice and early, things are about to get really good!

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

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