A person in a red jacket is walking through a snowy forest

A snowy mountain with ski lifts in the background

A person walking in the snow with mountains in the background

A person wearing a helmet and goggles stands in the snow with their arms in the air

Chamonix Snow Report: 18th January 2010

featured in Snow report Author Kieran Sharp, Updated 24 October 2014

Some more good days here in Chamonix - powder snow mixed with some semi-sunny days making for the possibility of good times! Over the weekend we had a nice dump of fresh snow after a few days of sunshine. The end of last week's dump was a bit inadequate due to a temperature drop freezing the snow which had warmed in the warmth of the sun. This meant that there was powder but with a bit of a crusty under layer. However, the weekend's snow dump sorted that out and we have had a couple of days of sweet powder riding, making it excellent for jumping off rocks or generally riding faster in confidence!

This winter started looking like it might not have a lot of snow fall, especially when most people compared it to last year's early season dump record which made touring and generally riding bottomless powder in November and December possible. As a result, people have been a little pessimistic about this season, but so far it has been a cracker! We have had loads of snow, many powder days and over the past month we have not been more than two days without riding fresh lines. So overall it's been great so far and the feeling in the town is that we are in for a third good season in a row. I wouldn't hesitate in booking in a holiday over here especially when you see all the snow in the UK; we are having similar weather patterns over here, except we have lifts! :O)

After our first proper hike of the season the other day to Buet, we definitely didn't feel like another straight away. With the weather coming in slightly and powder around the pistes again we decided to stay within the ski areas, heading to Brevent and Flegere where it was out of the wind on Thursday and had a fair amount of fresh snow in places. The cable-car up to Flegere was closed all day Thursday (and we where there for first lifts ready to go!!), however with the lift closed we headed to Brevent and took the higher lifts back over to Flegere where we found only ourselves and a few others leaving fresh lines most of the day.

We spent the day hitting line after line of fresh snow, with all the lifts (except the cable-car) open. This meant that we could score undisturbed lines all over the mountain until the inevitable weather headed in making for some flat light conditions, forcing us either to descend, or ride some trees! On that note we headed down some of the couloirs which run down through the trees at Brevent and Flegere. They were amazing! With the snow being more stable and falling all the way down to town, it made it more feasible for us to go on these adventures with minimal risk to ourselves or damage to our boards! We hit the couloirs a few times doing laps on the Brevent bubble lift before heading down at the end of the day underneath the link between Brevent and Flegere. This was probably the most amazing run of the day, not forgetting that all these runs can be very dangerous to avalanche so the experience of a guide is always the best option for exploring this type of terrain.

After heading down the last run underneath the link between the resorts we entered the home run of Flegere making our way to the Rhododendrons bar for a bit of Après ski before heading back for an early night to get some more fresh the next day!

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!