Chamonix Snow Report: 19th December 2010

Yesterday was perfect, amazing powder beautiful blue skies and happy faces all around. We started the day by getting to the Flegere lift well before the first bin was due to depart, as we had been riding the Grand Montets for the past month or so, and seeing a new hill again was very exciting! While in the queue we were informed that the index, which is the main chair lift on the hill, was not to be operational until late morning. On that note we quickly decided to transfer ourselves over to Grand Montets in order to hopefully get on the first bins there. We succeeded, however the bochard cable car wasn't going to be in operation until 09:30! We started thinking about shooting off somewhere else but realised it was now too late and we would lose our god given right to first bins.

We were very happy indeed to have people around us with flasks of coffee and tea which saw us through our very cold wait for the lift to open. Finally we made it up and had some amazing runs down the piste in perfect powder! Being the first proper powder day of the season and the first proper day for holiday makers, the slopes where very busy and became tracked out quit quickly, so after just two Bochard runs we had to look hard to find clean fresh tracks so we went and scoffed all the pow on the Herse lift in three runs. It was amazing bottomless powder and after seeing the hill become tracked out fairly quickly we decided to head back over to Flegere to see if the Index lift was open.

We arrived just in time, only a few people had been down the Index, and you could tell they had just been down by the panicked yet amusingly excited facial expressions people where wearing. We spent the rest of the day lapping the index finding fresh line after fresh line and dropping or spinning off every rock, lip, and cat track that came in our way! The great thing with Flegere especially on a cold day like yesterday is that it's pretty much south facing so you get loads more sun and even if it isn't that warm, psychologically it will feel that way. Although with that in mind it will mean the snow pack on that side of the valley won't be as deep, and lower down there where still a fair few rocks around to clip. We made the stupid mistake of taking the home run down and inevitably turned our lovely shiny new boards, immediately in to old ones!

After a hard days riding and a few scratches on our boards it was time for the first Après ski at Rhododendrons bar just opposite the Flegere lift with some amazing views of the Mont Blanc Massif, live music, and great happy beer! So what are you waiting for, loads of snow, season in absolute full swing, get out here and have the time of your life!

Check out our Mountain Guide Listings for contact details of local guiding and activity companies.

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!