Chamonix Snow Report: 1st December 2012

Chamonet's Jan Ogorzalek (& Rach), Andrew Bain, Ally Swinton (Mountain Dropoffs) and Lorne Cameron (Boax Clothing) headed through the tunnel to check out the Italian powder. Thanks to Lorne and Ally for the words and pictures...

After yesterday’s postponed opening we were itching to get through to Courmayeur on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc tunnel, along with what seemed like half of Chamonix’s skiers.  Arriving at the town-centre cablecar in time for the third bin of the day, we headed straight to the top of the main gondola and bagged a few quick laps of the chairlift furthest looker’s-right.  

The majority of the chairlift was race kids sticking to the pistes, leaving the good stuff for us: a few steep but short lines far skier’s-right at the avalanche barriers then a couple of quick tree runs skier’s-left.  Snowbase was pretty good everywhere with 20-30cm fresh powder ontop in most spots, just a few scrapes with tree stumps at times.

By this time Youla had opened (the first stage of the top bins) and with barely any queue we got 2 good laps off the back after ducking the fences, through nice rolling terrain with a few easy drops, ending in the tree run from earlier in the morning.  For the third lap we headed 50m down the front-face piste then cut left at the fence to join the main gully.  The entrance was a little thin in some spots but easy enough to get into with nice fresh snow, if a little sluffy.  Cutting skier’s-right at the end of the gully got us to a choice of mini-drops leading into wide-open untouched powder for long high-speed turns which my new Automatics were loving.

I’m really happy with the first couple of days’ riding this winter, with new gear performing well and 6 months spent in flipflops this summer not having too much affect on my boot comfort!  New snow is predicted for next Monday-Wednesday so it’ll be back to Verbier or Courmayeur then with hopefully more lifts running...

Sounds like the guys had a great time, and we're all looking forward to Saturday's opening of Grands Montets for the first Chamonix runs of this winter - for opening dates of the other lifts in the Valley click here, and if you've yet to buy your lift pass, or want to know what your options are check them out here.