Chamonix Snow Report: 22nd December 2005

The weather continues its pattern of clear blue skies during the day with freezing cold mornings and milder afternoons. This as all well and good as it makes for pleasant skiing conditions, but it would be nice to have a little more snow lined up in the weather forecast. The best of the snow is mid mountain, with higher up suffering from a lack of base.

Yesterday we rode at Le Tour – the grassy meadows and fewer rocks mean that it doesn't take too much snow to make for good cover. We stuck to the sunny slopes above Charamillon, with Col being my favourite piste of the day. It's a fairly gentle blue run and it's wide, so it's easy to make large carved turns. In the afternoon the snow there had softened enough to make it really easy to hold an edge, all good for flattering less than perfect technique. The run, Esserts, round to the back was altogether icier; however, the snow cover was very good with none of the grassy patches that were starting to show through at the front of Le Tour.

Grands Montets today was a pretty hard-boiled affair; it was the first time I've ridden there this season since the Bochard gondola opened up. The Bochard is the highest lift open at the moment at Grands Montets – taking skiers up to 2765m. There are some large rocks on the Bochard piste that are normally buried by the deep snow pack. So to deal with the problem there's a small army of snow cannons at work. It's not as bad as it sounds as the worst of the rocks are only on the top 200m of the piste, and they are well marked with poles and bales of straw so are easily avoided. Lower down on the Bochard run the cover is good, mainly consisting of a solid base with scrapings of softer loose snow sliding around on top. With my blunt edges it was pretty tricky holding an edge; I saw a skier fall and slide a good 100m before coming to a stop on a flatter section. The home run Pierre a Ric is pretty much unchanged since my last report; good condition with a hard almost icy base of artificial snow. The Marmottons piste was also in fine shape, again with a similarly hard-packed base and a loose covering of scraped snow.

All the lifts are now running at Grands Montets with the exception of the Grands Montets cable car to the very top; from what I could see from Bochard we'll need quite a bit more snow before the glacier is covered sufficiently to allow it to open. The off piste is looking pretty uninviting as I saw plenty of rocks littered around the place, although this doesn't seem to have deterred many with most of it now looking tracked out.

Useful Information
Cross-country skiing is Closed
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