Chamonix Snow Report: 20th March 2007
Today really was a case of “You snooze, you lose.” So I set my alarm half an hour earlier than normal and we were at the Brevent gondola by 9:15am; it was a little later than I would have liked as the queue had already extended to outside the building and up round the corner to the car park. But today the lift was running quickly and we were only waiting for 10-15 minutes at the most, so I don't think we missed out on too many lines.
It had carried on snowing yesterday through the evening, and even in town there was a sprinkling of snow on the ground. Up at Brevent it was very cold and the tracks from yesterday's powder riding had all been buried under another load of fresh snow. With it being colder today the powder felt considerably lighter than yesterday and it was the type of snow you'd expect to ride in January: that is, it was amazingly good. On our way down to the Cornu chairlift there were plenty of opportunities to cut fresh tracks off to the sides of Vioz, as the piste-bashers had only partially groomed the piste. It was just a taste of what was to come…
As we arrived at the top of Cornu we had our plans to ride the Charlanon bowl dashed: it was fenced off; but as luck would have it just as we strapped in to ride down the Col Cornu piste the pisteur started to remove the fence. Could it be true? Oh yes, we were going to be the first to get lines down the Charlanon bowl on a powder day. One skier jumped in before us but, hey, there was room enough for all three of us. With just his solitary track ahead, we had plenty of options so we headed skier's right into thigh-deep powder that was so light it was near impossible to stay on top of it. I lost count of the number of times that I was momentarily blinded by my own rooster tail of snow: you get the idea, it was some of the best powder of the season, no question about that.
We had planned to head over to Flegere but the Liaison wasn't de-iced yet so we wasted precious time waiting there only to be told to go away after 20 minutes. So we contented ourselves with more powder lines off of the Charlanon chairlift below the lift line before moving back to the Cornu lift again for a few more powder runs through the Charlanon bowl, which was steadily being tracked out: our traverses were getting longer each run in order to cut some clean lines. The weather was improving too: it had started out quite cloudy and overcast with some tricky flat light but by midday there were fleeting sunny spells and the light was excellent. However, the cold northerly Bise wind had started to pick up.
Eventually the Liaison opened and we made our way across to Flegere, mainly because I'd had a call from a friend saying that he had just had the best powder run of his life, so I reckoned it may have been as good in Flegere as it was in Brevent. The ride up the Index was horrendously windy: hoods went up, zippers were pulled tight and heads went down, it was super cold and it was hard to imagine the lift staying open in such bitterly strong wind. From the top of Index we headed skier's left riding a mixture of cornices, rock-drops, gullies and one stunning steep section that made me grin from ear to ear. The snow was superb, deep powder all the way down apart from one crusty section and it was also mostly untracked. There were plenty of lines still to be had but the wind had increased and the Index chairlift closed. The big board at the Flegere cable car station said that the Liaison had closed too, so we headed down via the Flegere-Les Praz cable car content that we had seen the best of the powder.
Back in the valley it was less windy but still a chilly 3ºC at our house. The little snow that was on the ground this morning had mostly melted except for in shady spots. We enjoyed a fantastic day's riding and as my friend said, “how does it get any better than that?”
Useful Information
Useful Links
Additional snow and weather information provided, with thanks, by meteo.chamonix.com and the Tourist Office
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
Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research
French Avalanche Research Institute
Meteo France - Mountain weather and avalanche conditions bulletins (in French)
Henry's Avalanche Talk - popular avalanche training sessions based in French Alps as well as translation of current avalanche conditions
PisteHors.com - Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding News in English for the French Alps. Excellent coverage of avalanche safety and advice
Stats
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Level 3
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0
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Total Pistes: 75
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Alt. Resort: 2000
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Alt. Summit: 2800
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Alt. Last Snow: 2000
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High Temp.: 3
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Alt. High Temp.: 1050
