Chamonix Snow Report: 21st March 2006

Yesterday I was at Le Tour with some visiting relatives. Le Tour's a great place to start your holiday if it's been a while since you last skied or boarded as the runs, by Chamonix standards, are fairly gentle blues and reds. Moguls are a rarity except under the Tete de Balme chair where there are always bumps. The weather was mostly good yesterday although fairly mixed: cloudy with some sunny spells, some light snow showers and, as is often the case, a cold wind on the Tete de Balme chair. The snow was good all day although it became heavier in the afternoon. All the pistes were in good shape and we must have ridden almost all the runs there, including Alpages, which I'm certain has only just been marked out with poles. The run down to Vallorcine, Foret Verte, was still in reasonably good shape although it's starting to get a little thin lower down, where it was quite slushy. It was a very popular run with my niece who wanted to do it again; she likes runs through trees. The runs on the Vallorcine side were generally a little icier at the top, especially Belle Place, but once at the tree line they softened up nicely. The runs on the Le Tour side were in good shape too. All the ones above Charamillon consisted of hard pack that was soft without going slushy. Caisets, the run down to Le Tour, however, had gone pretty slushy by the end of the day. I noticed that the snow cannons at the side of the piste are starting to come down. The pisteurs must be confident about the amount of snow that is on the ground; either that or they know that it's going to be too warm to make any more snow from now on. I wonder.

Today the weather really started to change for the worse, or better, whichever way you look at it. It started very cloudy this morning but I wanted to take my family up to Flegere as it's got some good runs for intermediates, so we went in the knowledge that the visibility may not be too good. We went straight up the cable car without waiting, as the queues now seem to have disappeared. It was snowing when we got there and it carried on all morning. Visibility was good enough to start with but by lunchtime it got the better of us and we drove back to Grands Montets. The pistes at Flegere were good though: there was a little fresh snow on the ground but not much, only 1-2cm. We stuck to the low runs off the Evettes, Trappes and Chavannes chairs as the trees low down helped break up the flat light.

Grands Montets in the afternoon didn't look too promising as it was raining at the car park. There were even mutinous rumours among the ranks about heading back to the hotel early, what kind of British skiers are they? Their tunes quickly changed after we were up on the mountain in the snow, which was falling heavily and continuously all afternoon. Bochard had about 5-10cm of fresh light snow at the top, enough to make the otherwise hard off-piste tempting. The pistes were good too, with the smooth coating of snow making them feel nice under foot again. The snow was falling fairly wet at Lognan and you didn't have to go very far down the slushy Pierre a Ric before it turned to rain. However, at the end of the day on our last run down my niece insisted that we do it once more, but then she does like tree runs.

Useful Information
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

We will be keeping this Chamonix snow report updated often during the season, but if you want even more up-to-date news on the ski conditions, why not sign up for our Dump Alert? We'll email you each time it snows enough to significantly change the skiing conditions. It's great to know that the snow is falling in the run-up to your holiday, and it might even allow you to book a last-minute weekend when the snow is particularly good. The service is free, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.

Useful Links
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

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